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Then the gendarme, an old comrade in arms of the turnpike-keeper, called loudly; "August! open the door! or let us know if you are ill!" All was silent. The shutters were closed; the whole house seemed asleep. Only the lowing of the cows sounded from their stable, and the rattling of their chains, as if they had heard the cries that could not awaken their old master.
'What do you mean by a pike-keeper? inquired Mr. Peter Magnus. 'The old 'un means a turnpike-keeper, gen'l'm'n, observed Mr. Samuel Weller, in explanation. 'Oh, said Mr. Pickwick, 'I see. Yes; very curious life. Very uncomfortable. 'They're all on 'em men as has met vith some disappointment in life, said Mr. Weller, senior. 'Ay, ay, said Mr. Pickwick. 'Yes.
The village-elder from home had come himself all this long way to inform the son of his father's death. There he stood, big, fat, and strong, in his sheepskin cloak; a freer breath of air seemed to have come in with him, and he related all there was to tell. It was not even certain when the turnpike-keeper had died. With the departure of summer the old man had seemed gradually to decay.
The first Saturday in July was a day of excitement for the turnpike-keeper, Friedrich August Vogt. He was rather annoyed with himself for losing his usual calm. Why? because his son his only son was coming home for the first time? Really, that was not such an event as to put him beside himself in this way!
The turnpike-keeper had not much to say; it only amounted to an earnest representation of how well-conducted his son had always hitherto been; of how glad he had been to be a soldier; and he ended with a bitter lamentation that all this should have happened to such a good, brave lad; the boy must have gone clean out of his senses. The old man said it all with the most touching self-restraint.
He gave the medical testimony, in pointed imitation of our local practitioner; and he piped and shook, as the aged turnpike-keeper who had heard blows, to an extent so very paralytic as to suggest a doubt regarding the mental competency of that witness. The coroner, in Mr. Wopsle's hands, became Timon of Athens; the beadle, Coriolanus.
When he saw me, he just popped his head inside the door, and said something to some people inside. "That's your boy, sir," said the turnpike-keeper. "Come on in here," said the officer, "and give an account of yourself." They led me into the room, where they were eating some bread and cheese. "He doesn't answer the description," said one of the men, glancing at a paper.
Then the turnpike-keeper opened his mouth for the first time since he had entered the room. "You were right!" he said, so loudly and emphatically that the inspector at the window started and gave a warning cough. Now that he had seen his son again, this brave honest lad, a change seemed to have come over the old man.
It was a difference concerning twopence between the persons with the waggon and the man at the toll-bar. "Mis'ess's niece is upon the top of the things, and she says that's enough that I've offered ye, you great miser, and she won't pay any more." These were the waggoner's words. "Very well; then mis'ess's niece can't pass," said the turnpike-keeper, closing the gate.
But the turnpike-keeper had a piece of luck: outside the station he met a gunner, who readily told him the address "11 Markt Strasse, up two flights of stairs" and showed him the way to go. The two flights of stairs tried the old man sorely. He had to wait on the first landing in order to get his breath. "Have I grown old all of a sudden?" he asked himself in surprise.
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