me a passage, the rivers change their courses, and there is no faith in the compass." But Rugg's horse had no idea of stopping more than one minute, for in the midst of this altercation, the horse, whose nose was resting on the upper bar of the turnpike gate, seized it between his teeth, lifted it gently off its staples, and trotted off with it. The toll-gatherer, confounded, strained his eyes after his gate. "Let him go," said I, "the horse will soon drop your gate, and you will get it again."
I then questioned the toll-gatherer respecting his knowledge of this man, and he related the following particulars: "The first time," said he, "that man ever passed this toll gate was in the year 1806, at the moment of the great eclipse. I thought the horse was frightened at the sudden darkness, and concluded he had run away with the man. But within a few days after, the same man and horse repassed with equal speed, without the least respect to the toll gate or to me, except by a vacant stare. Some few years afterward, during the late war, I saw the same man approaching again, and I resolved to check his
