i6 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 



and his operations were invariably conducted at a 

 snail's pace. He then sauntered indoors to get 

 change, whilst you underwent all the miseries of delay 

 iind consequent loss of temper. If at night, often as 

 early as nine o'clock, you had to bang the door of 

 the gatehouse till the man got up — generally in his 

 night shirt, and an old coat thrown over him, and 

 often with a tasselled night-cap for headgear. He 

 then had to unlock the gate, and throw, or rather 

 deliberately push it open to let you pass through. 

 These gatekeepers rarely remained at the same 

 gate more than a year or two at a time, as the tolls 

 were often taken by different persons at the annual 

 letting, and sometimes the lessees themselves came 

 to reside at the houses attached to the gates, or 

 put their sons or relatives in. In some instances 

 they were extremely agreeable, nice people, but 

 oftener they were sour, uncivil fellows, who seemed 

 to delight in making themselves obnoxious to 

 travellers. Dickens makes the elder Weller say 

 that ' They're all on 'em men as has met with some 

 disappintment in life, consequence of vich they 

 retires from the world, and shuts themselves up in 

 pikes, partly with the view of being solitary, and partly 

 to rewenge themselves on mankind by takin' tolls. 

 If they was gen'lm'n you'd call 'em misanthropes, 

 but as it is, they only takes to pike-keepin'.' 



The distances from one turnpike gate to another 

 varied very much, but generally the stopping-places 

 were about eight to ten miles apart. In some places, 

 as, for instance, my native town of Aylesbury the 



