The toll-gatherer administers a cup of cold water , and , discovering his guest to be a man of homely sense , he engages him in profitable talk , uttering the maxims of a philosophy which he has found in his own soul , but knows not how it came there . And as the wayfarer makes ready to resume his journey he tells him a sovereign remedy for blistered feet . Now comes the noontide hour -- of all the hours , nearest akin to midnight , for each has its own calmness and repose . Soon , however , the world begins to turn again upon its axis , and it seems the busiest epoch of the day , when an accident impedes the march of sublunary things . The draw being lifted to permit the passage of a schooner laden with wood from the Eastern forests , she sticks immovably right athwart the bridge . Meanwhile , on both sides of the chasm a throng of impatient travellers fret and fume . Here are two sailors in a gig with the top thrown back , both puffing cigars and swearing all sorts of forecastle oaths ; there , in a smart chaise , a dashingly-dressed gentleman and lady , he from a tailor 's shop-board and she from a milliner 's back room -- the aristocrats of a summer afternoon . And what are the haughtiest of us but the ephemeral aristocrats of a summer 's day ? Here is a tin-pedler whose glittering ware bedazzles all beholders like a travelling meteor or opposition sun , and on the other side a seller of spruce beer , which brisk liquor is confined in several dozen of stone bottles . Here conic a party of ladies on horseback , in green ridings habits , and gentlemen attendant , and there a flock of sheep for the market , pattering over the bridge with a multitude nous clatter of their little hoofs ; here a Frenchman with a hand-organ on his shoulder , and there an itinerant Swiss jeweller . On this side , heralded by a blast of clarions and bugles , appears a train of wagons conveying all the wild beasts of a caravan ; and on that a company of summer soldiers marching from village to village on a festival campaign , attended by the `` brass band . '' Now look at the scene , and it presents an emblem of the mysterious confusion , the apparently insolvable riddle , in which individuals , or the great world itself , seem often to be involved . What miracle shall set all things right again ? But see ! the schooner has thrust her bulky carcase through the chasm ; the draw descends ; horse and foot pass onward and leave the bridge vacant from end to end . `` And thus , '' muses the toll-gatherer , `` have I found it with all stoppages , even though the universe seemed to be at a stand . '' The sage old man ! Far westward now the reddening sun throws a broad sheet of splendor across the flood , and to the eyes of distant boatmen gleams brightly among the timbers of the bridge . Strollers come from the town to quaff the freshening breeze . One or two let down long lines and haul up flapping flounders or cunners or small cod , or perhaps an eel .
Others , and fair girls among them , with the flush of the hot day still on their cheeks , bend over the railing and watch the heaps of seaweed floating upward XXXXX the flowing tide .
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