Pikemen acquired a preternaturally acute memory for faces. It is an acquirement that, with the smile of recognition which costs nothing, makes princes more popular and beloved than the exercise of the most austere virtues. Not that pikemen commonly smiled. Suspicion and malevolence sat squarely on their countenances, and when a something that might by an effort be construed as a smile contorted their countenances, it was like that of an alligator who perceives a fine fat nigger within reach of his jaws. A pikeman who took toll of even a thousand persons in the course of a day, might safely be counted upon to recognise each on his return and to pass him without the formality of halting to show the ticket issued in the morning; but let one who had not already paid toll that day attempt to pass with the customary nod of the returning traveller, franked through by his morning’s payment, and he was certain to be stopped and asked for his ticket. Those were the occasions when the pikeman smiled in his most hateful manner. The only places where this cold-blooded grin of triumph may nowadays be seen off the melodramatic stage, are the Old Bailey and other criminal courts; when prosecuting counsel have forged the last link in a chain of conviction. It was at Woolscot toll-gate that the pikeman on one occasion was paid twice in one day for a gig. Tom Pinner, a well-known coachman who afterwards kept the “Five Ways” tavern at Birmingham, was once visited at Dunchurch by some friends who set out early from Daventry. They had a pleasant day and wound up with dinner. The feast was good, the wines potent, and the guests slept heavily. As they lay thus, the jocular Pinner blacked their faces, and when they had revived a little started them home. When the gig drew up in the flickering light of the toll-gate, they of course could not find their tickets, and the pikeman insisted on toll being paid: he was quite sure no black men had passed that day! Passing over the streamlet spanned by Rains Bridge, which is probably the “stone bridge” referred to by Ogilby in 1675, as situated at the end of the twelve furlongs’ length of “Dunchurch Lane, bad way,” the exquisite half-mile avenue of majestic elms leading along a gently curving road into Dunchurch is entered. Branches and thick foliage meet overhead and realise the oft-met similitude drawn between cathedral aisles and avenues such as this. XXXVIII