The coach was by this time within a hundred yards of me.

“Gate! gate!” shouted the postilion, but I paid no heed.  There was now a man on the box; I suppose he had been picked up at the crossroads.  He joined his cry to the postilion’s, and together they roared “Gate!” with many imprecations of the kind that men who deal with horses have at command.

But I still went on whittling my stick, not without some feeling of insecurity, for the coach was approaching at a furious speed, and it seemed impossible that the postilion could draw up in time to prevent the horses from dashing themselves against the barrier.  He accomplished that feat, however, and the leading horse came to a standstill within little more than a foot of me; I could feel its hot breath on my hand.  Like the other two, it was covered with foam, and their sides were heaving like a bellows.

“Gate!” roared the postilion, looking in at the open door, and receiving no reply he turned his head towards me and demanded with an oath to know where the turnpike keeper was.

“He bin gone out,” I said, in the broadest Shropshire accent I could muster.

“The mischief he is!  Who be in charge of the gate then?”

Sputtering with wrath the postilion cursed me and demanded to know what I meant by sitting a-top when travelers wished to pass through.  I assumed the vacant grin that rustics wear, and said: 

“The toll be tuppence, measter.”

“Here it is,” says the man, flinging the coins on the ground, “and be hanged to you.”

I descended from my perch (the man abusing me for my slowness), picked up the money, and went into the cottage as if to get the key.

“Be quick about it,” roared the postilion after me.

“Coming, measter,” I replied, sitting on the table, out of his sight.  In a little he cried to me again: 

“What be doin’ of?  Stir your stumps, I say.”

“Coming, measter,” says I, knocking my knife against the potato pan to signify bustle.  The man’s language grew more and more violent as the minutes passed and still I did not reappear, until, having consumed as much time as I thought becoming, I went to the doorway, and said, in the manner of stating a simple fact of no importance,

“Key binna hangin’ on nail, measter.  The nail be proper plaace for it:  can ya tell me where to look?”

My drawling tone seemed to incense the man to the verge of apoplexy.  Hurling abuse at me, he ended with a threat to horsewhip me within an inch of my life if I did not instantly find the key and open the gate.  At this I shrank back, putting up my hands to guard my head with great affectation of terror, and withdrew once more into the cottage.  As I did so, I heard the shutters on the far side of the coach let down, and a voice demanding the reason of the delay.

“The pudding-headed scut cannot find the key, sir.”

“Tell him,” said the voice in a louder tone (and I tingled as I recognized it)—­“tell him that if he keeps us waiting another minute we will break the gate down.”