`` Here has been a sweet hour 's sport ! '' said the withered crone , chuckling to herself . THE TOLL-GATHERER 'S DAY . A SKETCH OF TRANSITORY LIFE . Methinks , for a person whose instinct bids him rather to pore over the current of life than to plunge into its tumultuous waves , no undesirable retreat were a toll-house beside some thronged thoroughfare of the land . In youth , perhaps , it is good for the observer to run about the earth , to leave the track of his footsteps far and wide , to mingle himself with the action of numberless vicissitudes , and , finally , in some calm solitude to feed a musing spirit on all that he has seen and felt . But there are natures too indolent or too sensitive to endure the dust , the sunshine or the rain , the turmoil of moral and physical elements , to which all the wayfarers of the world expose themselves . For such a man how pleasant a miracle could life be made to roll its variegated length by the threshold of his own hermitage , and the great globe , as it were , perform its revolutions and shift its thousand scenes before his eyes without whirling him onward in its course ! If any mortal be favored with a lot analogous to this , 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 XXXXX 's little hermitage .
Methinks day hay-mow hermitage life-blood morning night pencil-sketches toll-gatherer visionary