Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Toll Gatherer's Day (From "Twice Told Tales") by Nathaniel Hawthorne
page 7 of 7 (100%)
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 carcass 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 sea-weed
floating upward with the flowing tide. The horses now tramp heavily
along the bridge, and wistfully bethink them of their stables. Rest,
rest, thou weary world! for tomorrow's round of toil and pleasure will
be as wearisome as to-day's has been; yet both shall bear thee onward a
day's march of eternity. Now the old toll-gatherer looks seaward, and
discerns the lighthouse kindling on a far island, and the stars, too,
kindling in the sky, as if but a little way beyond; and mingling reveries
of Heaven with remembrances of Earth, the whole procession of mortal
travellers, all the dusty pilgrimage which he has witnessed, seems like a
flitting show of phantoms for his thoughtful soul to muse upon.
DigitalOcean Referral Badge