is, it is the toll-gatherer. So, at least,
have I often fancied while lounging on a bench at the door of a small
square edifice which stands between shore and shore in the midst of a
long bridge. Beneath the timbers ebbs and flows an arm of the sea,
while above, like the life-blood through a great artery, the travel of
the north and east is continually throbbing. Sitting on the aforesaid
bench, I amuse myself with a conception, illustrated by numerous
pencil-sketches in the air, of the toll-gatherer's day.

In the morning--dim, gray, dewy summer's morn--the distant roll of
ponderous wheels begins to mingle with my old friend's slumbers,
creaking more and more harshly through the midst of his dream and
gradually replacing it with realities. Hardly conscious of the change
from sleep to wakefulness, he finds himself partly clad and throwing
wide the toll-gates for the passage of a fragrant load of hay. The
timbers groan beneath the slow-revolving wheels; one sturdy yeoman
stalks beside the oxen, and, peering from the summit of the hay, by
the glimmer of the half-extinguished lantern over the toll-house is
seen the drowsy visage of his comrade, who has enjoyed a nap some ten
miles long. The toll is paid; creak, creak, again go the wheels, and
the huge hay-mow vanishes into the morning mist. As yet nature is but
half awake, and familiar objects appear visionary. But yonder, dashing
from the shore with a rattling thunder of the wheels and a confused
clatter of hoofs, comes the never-tiring mail, which has hurried
onward at the same headlong, restless rate all through the quiet
night. The bridge resounds in one continued peal as the coach rolls on
without a pause, merely affording the toll-gatherer a glimpse at the
sleepy passengers, who now bestir their torpid limbs and snuff a
cordial in the briny air. The morn breathes upon them and blushes, and
they forget how wearily the darkness toiled away. And behold now the
fervid day in his bright chariot, glittering aslant over the waves,
nor scorning to throw a tribute of his golden beams on the
toll-gatherer's little hermitage. The old man looks eastward, and (for
he is a moralizer) frames a simile of the stage-coach and the sun.

While the world is rousing itself we may glance slightly at the scene
of our sketch. It sits above the bosom of the broad flood--a spot not
of earth, but in the midst of waters which rush with a murmuring sound
among the massive beams beneath. Over the