, afloat, so that he had determined to get
marine insurance done for the future. But that which excited his
surprise most was the strange conduct of his horse, for that, long
before he could distinguish the man in the chair, his own horse stood
still in the road and flung back his ears. "In short," said the
peddler, "I wish never to see that man and horse again; they do not
look to me as if they belonged to this world."
This is all that I could learn at that time; and the occurrence soon
after would have become with me like one of those things which had
never happened, had I not, as I stood recently on the doorstep of
Bennett's Hotel in Hartford, heard a man say, "There goes Peter Rugg
and his child! he looks wet and weary, and farther from Boston than
ever." I was satisfied it was the same man that I had seen more than
three years before; for whoever has once seen Peter Rugg can never
after be deceived as to his identity. "Peter Rugg!" said I, "and who
is Peter Rugg?" "That," said the stranger, "is more than anyone can
tell exactly. He is a famous traveller, held in light esteem by all
inn-holders, for he never stops to eat, drink, or sleep. I wonder why
the Government does not employ him to carry the mail." "Ay," said a
bystander, "that is a thought bright only on one side. How long would
it take, in that case, to send a letter to Boston? For Peter has
already, to my knowledge, been more than twenty years travelling to
that place." "But," said I, "does the man never stop anywhere, does
he never converse with anyone? I saw the same man more than three
years since, near Providence, and I heard a strange story about him.
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