to the number of animals and wheels attached to them, a painted table of tolls being affixed to the tollhouse.  The gates were kept closed, and were only opened when vehicles and cattle arrived, and after payment of the charges.  There was no charge made to pedestrians, for whom a small gate or turnstile was provided at the side nearest the tollhouse.  The contractors who rented the tolls had to depend for their profit or loss upon the total amount of the tolls collected minus the amount of rent paid and toll-keepers’ wages.  Towards the close of the Trusts the railways had made such inroads upon the traffic passing by road that it was estimated that the cost of collection of tolls amounted to 50 per cent. of the total sum collected.

The tollgate-keeper informed us that Dick Turpin, the highwayman, never paid any tolls, for no collector dare ask him for payment, and if the gate was closed, “Black Bess,” his favourite mare, jumped over it.

He had a lot to tell us about Furness Abbey.  He knew that it had been built by King Stephen, and he said that not far from it there was a park called Oxen Park, where the king kept his oxen, and that he had also a Stirk Park.

He asked us if we had seen the small and very old church of Cartmel Fell, and when we told him we had not, he said that travellers who did not know its whereabouts often missed seeing it, for, although not far from the road, it was hidden from view by a bank or small mound, and there was a legend that some traveller, saint, or hermit who slept on the bank dreamed that he must build a church between two rivers running in opposite directions.  He travelled all the world over, but could not find any place where the rivers ran in opposite directions, so he came back disappointed, only to find the rivers were quite near the place he started from.  The church was of remote antiquity, and was dedicated to St. Anthony, the patron saint of wild boars and of wild beasts generally; but who built the church, and where the rivers were to be found, did not transpire.

We had carried our mackintoshes all the way from John o’ Groat’s, and they had done us good service; but the time had now arrived when they had become comparatively useless, so, after thanking the keeper of the tollhouse for allowing us to shelter there, we left them with him as relics of the past.  The great objection to these waterproofs was that though they prevented the moisture coming inwards, they also prevented it going outwards, and the heat and perspiration generated by the exertion of walking soon caused us to be as wet as if we had worn no protection at all.  Of course we always avoided standing in a cold wind or sitting in a cold room, and latterly we had preferred getting wet through to wearing them.