“Yes, and also it ain’t exempt from paying toll!” retorted John, grinning at him. “What kind of a knock-in-the-cradle do you take me for, dry-boots? You hand over the half of a fiddle!”
“How was I to know you was a downy one?” demanded the driver, philosophically accepting defeat. “I thought you was a cawker.”
“You go and milk a pigeon!” recommended John, handing him a ticket, and accepting in exchange three greasy coins.
He shut the gate again behind the cart, and walked back to the house. The man on the bench, removing the pipe from between his teeth, said: “I dessay you get a good few coves trying to chouse you out of the toll.”
John laughed. “Yes, when they think I’m a greenhead.”
“Been at the gate long?”
“I’m only taking charge of it while the true man’s away. Gatekeeping’s not my trade.”
“I suspicioned it weren’t. What might your calling be, if I’m not making too bold to ask?”
“Trooper,” John replied briefly. He had come to a halt a few paces from the bench, and was looking down at the stocky man, wondering who and what he might be. He had the accent of a Londoner, but the wide-brimmed hat he wore, the short, full coat of frieze, and the gaitered legs suggested that he might well be a bailiff, or a farmer. “Native of these parts?” he asked.
The man shook his head. “Never been in this here county afore. It’s too full of hills for my taste. I’m here on a matter o’ business. There’s a certain party as I’m acting for as has a fancy to buy a property hereabouts, if he could find what might suit him. I seen one or two, Buxton-way, but I dunno as any of ’em are just what I’m after, and the prices certainly ain’t. You know of anyone wanting to sell a decentish place, with a bit o’ land, not too dear?”