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Yesterday in the early morning we found ourselves emerging from some stony hills with a great plain before us about four miles wide, I should think, with an ugly-looking range of hills bounding it on the north and the railway running north and south on our left. This we had every reason to believe was the enemy's position; toll-gate No. 2 on the Kimberley road. We went on to reconnoitre.
It was a remark that had been made frequently, both by strangers and residents in that part of the country, that if it had not been for the obvious disadvantages of a toll-gate, this house and garden, with its grounds and fields, would be a good enough home for anybody.
They appeared to regard the toll-gate as a new scheme for holding up travellers for the purpose of robbery, and many of them evidently thought me a kind of freebooter, who ought to be suppressed by law.
This she could have done before, she firmly believed, had it not been for her old father and that horrid girl, the captain's niece. As for the elderly man who kept the toll-gate she did not mind him. If not interfered with, she was sure she could make him marry her, and then the great ambition of her life would be satisfied.
"When Captain Abner and Sam returned from the stable they looked up and down the far-stretching road, and then, at the invitation of the toll-gate woman, they seated themselves on a bench at the back of the toll-house. "''Tisn't a very good time for people to be passin', said she. 'Not many folks is on the road between twelve and one. They're generally feedin' themselves and their horses.
"My dear Miss, Apsley House is a toll-gate lodge, compared to this mansion! I doubt if there be a dwelling in all England half as magnificent indeed, I cannot imagine any thing more brilliant and rich." Aristabulus was not a man to do things by halves, and it was a point of honour with him to know something of every thing.
We were between three and four miles away, but in the stillness of the night it seemed much nearer. "And with a good road under us we might by this time have been within half a dozen miles of the frontier and safe." "Safe?" said Hinge. "Quite so, sir. Safe to run into the ground at the toll-gate, sir. We're a lot better off where we are.
Habit reasserted itself and he went off to his work, muttering his rambling thoughts as he shambled along the path he and Murphy had beaten in the snow. But he carried his rifle, which he had never done before, and he stood it close beside him while he worked. Also he kept an eye on the trail and on Toll-Gate cabin. He would have been as hard to catch unaware that day as a weasel.
Sometimes a good talking acquaintance or an interesting traveler would tie his horse under the shade of the maple-tree and sit a while with the captain on the little porch. Certain it was, it was the most hospitable toll-gate in that part of the country.
A whirl of wild hopes kept him up and urged him on hopes that they might stop on the road to water the horses, or to refresh themselves, or that they might be delayed at the toll-gate to make change, or that some other possible or impossible thing might happen to stop their journey long enough for him to overtake them and see Claudia once more; to shake hands with her, bid her good-by, and receive from her at parting some last word of regard some last token of remembrance!
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