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34
PETER RUGG,

eats, drinks or lodges. He seems to have an indistinct idea of day and night, time and space, storm and sunshine. His only object is Boston. It appears to me that Rugg's horse has some control of the chair; and that Rugg himself is in some sort under the control of his horse." I then inquired of the stranger where he first saw the man and horse. "Why sir," said he, "In the summer of 1824 I travelled to the North for my health, and soon after I saw you at the Marlborough Hotel, I returned homeward to Virginia, and, if my memory is correct, I saw this man and horse in every state between here and Massachusetts. Sometimes he would meet me, but oftener overtake me. He never spoke but once, and that once was in Delaware. On his approach he checked his horse with some difficulty. A more beautiful horse I never saw: his hide was as fair and rotund and glossy as the skin of a Congo beauty. When Rugg's horse approached mine, he reined in his neck, bent his ears forward until they met, and looked my horse full in the face, My horse immediately withered into half a horse; his hide curled up like a piece