A long, wide, and smoothly macadamized road stretched itself from the
considerable town of Glenford onward and northward toward a gap in the
distant mountains. It did not run through a level country, but rose and
fell as if it had been a line of seaweed upon the long swells of the
ocean. Upon elevated points upon this road, farm lands and forests could
be seen extending in every direction. But there was nothing in the
landscape which impressed itself more obtrusively upon the attention of
the traveler than the road itself. White in the bright sunlight and gray
under the shadows of the clouds, it was the one thing to be seen which
seemed to have a decided purpose. Northward or southward, toward the gap
in the long line of mountains or toward the wood-encircled town in the
valley, it was always going somewhere.

About two miles from the town, and at the top of the first long hill
which was climbed by the road, a tall white pole projected upward
against the sky, sometimes perpendicularly, and sometimes inclined at a
slight angle. This was a turnpike gate or bar, and gave notice to all in
vehicles or on horses that the use of this well-kept road was not free
to the traveling public. At the approach of persons not known, or too
well known, the bar would slowly descend across the road, as if it were
a musket held horizontally while a sentinel demanded the password.

Upon the side of the road opposite to the great post on which the
toll-gate moved, was a little house with a covered doorway, from which
toll could be collected without exposing the collector to sun or rain.
This tollhouse was not a plain whitewashed shed, such as is often seen
upon turnpike roads, but a neat edifice, containing a comfortable room.
On one side of it was a small porch, well shaded by vines, furnished
with a settle and two armchairs, while over all a large maple stretched