While this man was speaking, a pedler with a cart of tin merchandise came up, all dripping; and on being questioned, he said he had met that man and carriage, within a fortnight, in four different States; that at each time he had inquired the way to Boston; and that a thunder-shower like the present had each time deluged his wagon and his wares, setting his tin pots, etc. afloat, so that he had determined to get a marine insurance for the future. But that which excited his surprise most was the strange conduct of his horse, for 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 pedler, “I wish never to see that man and horse again; they do not look to me as though they belonged to this world.” This was all 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 door-step 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 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 any one can tell exactly. He is a famous traveller, held in light esteem by all innholders, 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 by-stander, “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 any one? I saw the same man more than three years since, near Providence, and I heard a strange story about him. Pray, sir, give me some account of this man.” “Sir,” said the stranger, “those who know the most respecting that man, say the least. I have heard it asserted that Heaven sometimes sets a mark on a man, either for judgment or a trial. Under which Peter Rugg now labors, I cannot say; therefore I am rather inclined to pity than to judge.” “You speak like a humane man,” said I; “and if you have known him so long, I pray you will give me some account of him. Has his appearance much altered in that time?” “Why, yes. He looks as though he never ate, drank, or slept; and his child looks older than himself, and he looks like time broken off from eternity, and anxious to gain a resting-place.” “And how does his horse look?” said I. “As for his horse, he looks fatter and gayer, and shows more animation and courage than he did twenty years ago. The last time Rugg spoke to me he inquired how far it was to Boston. I told him just one hundred miles.”