Page:Peterruggmissing00austrich.djvu/33

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THE MISSING MAN.
27

Rugg one day in Connecticut, the next they heard of him winding round the hills in New Hampshire; and soon after, a man in a chair, with a small child, exactly answering the description of Peter Rugg, would be seen in Rhode Island, inquiring the way to Boston.

"But that which chiefly gave a color of mystery to the story of Peter Rugg, was the affair at Charlestown Bridge. The toll gatherer asserted that sometimes, on the darkest and most stormy nights, when no object could be discerned, about the time Rugg was missing, a horse and wheel carriage, with a noise equal to a troop, would at midnight in utter contempt of the rates of toll, pass over the bridge. This occurred so frequently that the toll gatherer resolved to attempt a discovery. Soon after, at the usual time, apparently the same horse and carriage approached the bridge from Charlestown square. The toll gatherer, prepared, took his stand as near the middle of the bridge as he dared, with a large three-legged stool in his hand. As the appearance passed, he threw the stool at the horse, but heard nothing except the noise of the stool skipping across the bridge. The