THE YORK ROAD 309 



The next event which followed in this order, was the 

 narrow escape of the toll-bar keeper, who, tired of 

 crouching like a tiger in his lair, rushed out of it, and 

 was nearly trampled to death under the feet of the three 

 lumbering East Indiamen — that is to say under the 

 feet of Paterson's (chief constable of Westminster's) 

 horse. 



" Open the gate, fellow," he (Paterson) cried. 



But the man said " not at all " unless he got his dues. 

 He'd been done once already ; and he was prepared to 

 be struck stupid if he was done a second time. By which 

 ingenious block, while Paterson was feeling in his pocket 

 for a crown piece, our friend Richard was enabled to take 

 advantage of the delay and breathe his marc — after which 

 he struck into a bye lane at Duckett's Green, and canter- 

 ing easily along came at Tottenham (four and a half 

 miles from London), for the first time in his ride, into 

 the Great North Road. 



At Tottenham the whole place was up in arms. 

 The inhabitants shouted, screamed, ran and danced. 

 They also hurled every possible missile at the horse 

 and her rider. And what did Dick do under these 

 sufficiently embarrassing circumstances ? Why, he 

 " laughed at the brickbats that were showered thick as 

 hail and quite as harmlessly around him." After which 

 he proceeded at his best pace to Edmonton (seven 

 miles from London). Here too, as at Tottenham, the 

 ingenuous natives turned out to a man to see him pass. 

 But they did not throw brick-bats at him : far from it ! 

 They supposed that Dick was riding for a wager, and 

 received him with acclamations. But now came borne 

 on the wind's wings the pursuers' ominous cries, "Turpin ! 

 Dick Turpin ! " upon which in an instant the good 

 Edmontonians ratted, and hissed ; and no toll-gate, 

 twelve feet high, with chevaux de frise in the upper 

 rail, being handy, a man in a donkey cart, somewhat 

 ostentatiously drew himself up in the middle of the 

 road. And Turpin went through the usual formula 



