“Canna ye gae and see?”
The knocking became vociferous, the horseman seemed to be hammering at the door with the loaded end of his riding-whip.
“Haud your noise out there, will you then!” bawled the old man, bouncing out of bed, throwing a blanket around him and seizing his blunderbus, while Jenny crept to the door and cautiously opened it, keeping herself behind it.
The rain had nearly ceased and the sky was clearing.
A tall, stout, dark man, in a dark riding-coat, stood outside. With one hand he held the bridle of his horse, and with the other the handle of his riding-whip, with which he had just rapped.
So much Jenny, cautiously peeping around the edge of the door, could make out.
The old toll-taker came forward, wrapped in his blanket like a North American Indian, and carrying his musket in his hand, and growling:
“Am I no to have ony peace or quiet the night? I’d as weel be keeper o’ one o’ these new-fangled railway stations where the trains are aye coming and going day and night, instead o’ this once quiet toll-gate. Who be ye, sir, and what’s your will?” he growled at this second stranger.
“I am a traveller going to Old Lyon Hall; and I wish to know the nearest road,” answered the horseman. But a sudden parting blast of wind drowned half his words.
“And by the way, how came ye on this side of the road, when the great bar is up for the night?” angrily demanded the toll-taker.