“Good and bad of all sorts.”
As the “Commissioners” rely on the _trust_ reposed in the “Pikeman,” I
imagine him to be worthy of being shown in the most favourable colours.
Like a good sexton, he must attend to his toll--like a salesman, know
his head of cattle--like a lottery prize-seeker, be acquainted with his
number--like Fielding’s Minos, in his “Journey from this world to the
next,” shut his gate against those who are brought up improperly to the
bar. A modern Gilpin should scarcely risk a ride unwittingly through his
demesne.
In the “dead waste and middle of the night,” when sleep steals over him
wearily, how many calls of the coachman, the chaise driver, the stanhope
gentleman, the important bagman, and the drover, is he obliged to obey!
The imperative “Pike!”--“Gate!”--“Hallo!”--are like so many _knells_
rung in his ear. The clock is a friend to most men in the various
occupations of life; the shadow on the grass warns the shepherd and hind
to retire to rest; the dial gives the gardener leave to quit his
vegetable and floral world in safety till the succeeding morning; but
the pikeman finds no solace in the instructive progress of his
Dutch-clock, or in the more highly favoured one with a window before its
pulselike-pendulum, (as the person with a window in his breast,) or in
the weather betokening “man and woman,” who, like an unhappy couple,
never go out together.
Who that has looked upon the pikeman’s contracted span--his little
white-painted hut, like a showman’s figured canvass--but shrewdly
guesses that the best portions of his sunside of comforts are on the
outside? What a Jack in the Box![480] He seems in his room like a
singing-bird in a cage. His cat and dog are his companions, save when
the newsman, postman, or any man, in short, arrives. Munden’s “Crack” is
not to be seen at every turnpike gate. A magpie, or blackbird, often
hangs and whistles, like himself, in stationary captivity. Yet he is a
man of some information. The waggoner, the duellist, the huckster, and
the Gretna folks, in pursuit of romantic happiness, sometimes make him
useful. The horse patrol consults him in the way of business; few fights
occur without his knowledge; and even the political express gives him
broad hints as to the secret operations of his majesty’s ministers. He
is completely _au fait_ in all common concerns in his vicinity--a local
“finger-post.”
Occasionally, I have seen a chubfaced, curly-headed child playing near
his “box” on the roadside, like idleness in ease, with rushes and flags
round its brow, enjoying the luxuries of fancied greatness, and
twisting leaves and weeds together--emblems of our varied and united
virtues. And I have beheld a pikeman’s housewife (if her dwelling may be
called a house) busily employed within her narrow sphere to “keep things
straight,” and “make both ends meet,” with an understanding, that “all’s
well that ends well.”[481] And I have observed her lovely child,
kneeling before its mother on a stool, with its palms pressed together,
in the grateful attitude of an acknowledged beneficent Providence.
_I_ once _knew_ an upright and a civil pikeman. He had seen better
days.--One of the beauties of education is, that it distinguishes a man,
however he is placed.--He was planed down, as a carpenter might say,
from the knots of pride, to smooth humanity. To use a beautiful, though
much quoted, apostrophe by Avon’s bard, “I shall not look upon his like
again!” All good characters give useful example:--they teach as they
live, and win inferiors in virtue by the brightness and placidity of
their decline and fall.
There is a difference between a Tyburn-gate official, and a promiscuous
sojourner, who guards the pass of a new, lone road, through which
scarcely a roadster trots. The cockney keeper of cockney riders, is
rarely without “short cut” and the “ready” in word and deed. In his
short-pocketed white apron he stands defiance, and seems to say, “Who
cares?” His knowing wink to the elastic arm of the coachee, which
indicates the “all right!” has much meaning in it. His twirl of the
sixpence on his thumb nail, and rattle of “coppers” for “small change,”
prove his knowledge of exchange and the world.
The pikeman out of town is allowed a scrap of garden-ground, which he
sedulously cultivates. In town, he has not the liberty of a back
door--to be acquainted with his boundaries, you need only look at the
“Farthing pie gate” for an example. He may be sometimes seen in a chair,
in front of his domicile, making remarks on “men and manners.” His name
hangs on a thread over his door: if he is an honest man, equestrians
will appreciate his merits, and do well if they imitate his philosophy.