Free The Toll-Gate by Georgette Heyer

rate of two horses, not of one. "What's more, it's loaded," he added, interrupting an unflattering description of his personal appearance and mental turpitude, "so it pays double toll. I'll take a horde and tenpence from you, my bully!"
    "You'll take one in the bread-basket!" said the waggoner fiercely.
    "Oh, will I?" retorted the Captain. "It'll be bellows to mend with you if you're thinking of a mill, but I've no objection! Put 'em up!"
    "I seen a man like you in a fair onct," said the waggoner, ignoring this invitation. "Leastways, they said he was a man. 'Ardly 'uman he was, poor creature!"
    "And now I come to think of it," said the Captain, "didn't I see you riding on the shaft? That's unlawful, and it's my duty to report it."
    Swelling with indignation, the waggoner spoke his mind with a fluency and a range of vocabulary which commanded the Captain's admiration. He then produced the sum of one shilling and tenpence, defiantly mounted the shaft again, and went on his way, feeling that his defeat had been honourable.
    The Captain, shutting the gate, found that he was being critically regarded by a buxom woman who was standing outside the toll-house, with a basket on her arm. Her rather plump form was neatly attired in a dress of sober grey, made high to the throat, and unadorned by any ribbons or flounces. Over it she wore a cloak; and under a plain chip hat her pretty brown hair was confined in a starched muslin cap, tied beneath her chin in a stiff bow. She was by no means young, but she was decidedly comely, with well-opened grey eyes, an impertinent nose, and a firm mouth that betokened a good deal of character. Having listened without embarrassment to John's interchange with the waggoner, she said sharply, as he caught sight of her: "Well, young man! Very pretty language to be using in front of females, I must say!"
    "I didn't know you were there," apologised John.
    "That's no excuse. The idea of bandying words with a low, vulgar creature like that! What have you done to your shirt?"
    John glanced guiltily down at a jagged tear in one sleeve. "I caught it on a nail," he said.
    She clicked her tongue, saying severely: "You've no business to be wearing a good shirt like that. You'd better let me have it, when you take it off, and I'll mend it for you."
    "Thank'ee!" said John.
    "That's quite enough of that!" she told him, an irrepressible dimple showing itself for an instant. "Don't you try and hoax me you're not a gentleman born, because you can't do it!"
    "I won't," he promised. "And don't you try to hoax me you're not Miss Stornaway's nurse, because I wouldn't believe you! You put me much in mind of my own nurse."
    "I'll be bound you were a rare handful for the poor soul," she retorted. "If you are going to town this morning, see you buy a couple of stout shirts! A sin and a shame it is to be wearing a fine one like this, and you very likely chopping wood, and I don't know what beside! What your mother would say, if she was to see you, sir——!"
    Concluding from this speech that he had been approved, John said, with a smile: "I will. I'll take good care of your mistress, too. You may be easy on that head!"
    "Well, it's time someone did, other than me and Joseph—though what good he could do it queers me to guess!" she said. "I don't know who you are, nor what you're doing here, but I can see you're respectable, and if you did happen to fall out with a nasty, bracket-faced gentleman, with black hair and the wickedest eyes I ever did see, I don't doubt he'd have the worst of it. With your good leave, sir, I'll step inside to have a word with Mrs. Skeffling, if that's her I hear in the kitchen. I've got some of our butter for her, which Miss Nell promised she should have. And I was to tell you, Mr. Jack—if that's what you're wishful to be called—that Miss Nell will be along with the gig just as soon as those two gentlemen have taken themselves off to Sheffield!" With these words she marched through the office to