and turned his poor old
mother out upon the cold mountain's side.

Many strange adventures occurred to Tom in South Wales, but those which
befell him whilst officiating as a turnpike-keeper were certainly the
most extraordinary. If what he says be true, as of course it is--for who
shall presume to doubt Tom O' the Dingle's veracity?--whosoever fills the
office of turnpike-keeper in Wild Wales should be a person of very
considerable nerve.

"We were in the habit of seeing," says Tom, "plenty of passengers going
through the gate without paying toll; I mean such things as are called
phantoms or illusions--sometimes there were hearses and mourning coaches,
sometimes funeral processions on foot, the whole to be seen as distinctly
as anything could be seen, especially at night-time. I saw myself on a
certain night a hearse go through the gate whilst it was shut; I saw the
horses and the harness, the postillion, and the coachman, and the tufts
of hair such as are seen on the tops of hearses, and I saw the wheels
scattering the stones in the road, just as other wheels would have done.
Then I saw a funeral of the same character, for all the world like a real
funeral; there was the bier and the black drapery. I have seen more than
one. If a young man was to be buried there would be a white sheet, or
something that looked like one--and sometimes I have seen a flaring
candle going past.

"Once a traveller passing through the gate called out to me: 'Look!
yonder is a corpse candle coming through the fields beside the highway.'
So we paid attention to it as it moved, making apparently towards the
church from the other side. Sometimes it would be quite near the road,
another time some way into the fields. And sure enough after the lapse
of a little time a body was brought by exactly the same route by which
the candle had come, owing to the proper road being blocked up with snow.

"Another time there happened a great wonder connected with an old man of
Carmarthen, who was in the habit of carrying fish to Brecon, Menny, and
Monmouth, and returning with the poorer kind of Gloucester cheese: my
people knew he was on the road and had made ready for him, the weather
being dreadful, wind blowing and snow drifting. Well, in the middle of
the night, my daughters heard the voice of the old man at the gate, and
their mother called to them to open it quick, and invite the old man to
come in to the fire! One of the girls got up forthwit