Our Whispering Gallery: Xi

DICKENS had timed our visit to his country house in Kent, and arranged that we should appear at Gad’s Hill with the nightingales. Arriving at the Higham station, on a bright June day in 1869, we found his stout little pony ready to take us up the hill; and before we had proceeded far on the road, the master himself came out to welcome us on the way. He looked brown and hearty, and told us he had passed a breezy morning writing in the châlet. We had parted from him only a few days before in London, but I thought the country air had already begun to exert its strengthening influence, − a process he said which commonly set in the moment he reached his garden gate.

It was ten years since I had seen Gad’s Hill Place, and I observed at once what extensive improvements had been made during that period. Dickens had increased his estate by adding quite a large tract of land on the opposite side of the road, and a beautiful meadow at the back of the house. He had connected the front lawn, by a passageway running under the road, with beautifully wooded grounds, on which was erected the Swiss châlet, a present from Fechter. The old house, too, had been greatly improved, and there was an air of assured comfort and ease about the charming establishment. No one could surpass Dickens as a host; and as there were certain household rules (hours for meals, recreation, etc.), he at once announced them, so that visitors never lost anytime “wondering” when this or that was to happen.

Lunch over, we were taken round to see the dogs, and Dickens gave us a rapid biographical account of each as we made acquaintance with the whole colony. One old fellow, who had grown superannuated and nearly blind, raised himself up and laid his great black head against Dickens’s breast as if he loved him. All were spoken to with pleasant words of greeting, and the whole troop seemed wild with joy over the master’s visit. “Linda” put up her shaggy paw to be shaken at parting ; and as we left the dog-houses, our host told us some amusing anecdotes of his favorite friends.

Dickens’s admiration of Hogarth was unbounded, and he had hung the staircase leading up from the hall of his house with fine old impressions of the great master’s best works. Observing our immediate interest in these pictures, he seemed greatly pleased, and proceeded at once to point out in his graphic way what had struck his own fancy most in Hogarth’s genius. He had made a study of the painter’s thought as displayed in these works, and his talk about the artist was delightful. He used to say he never came down the stairs without pausing with new wonder over the fertility of the mind that had conceived and the hand that had executed these powerful pictures of human life ; and I cannot forget with what fervid energy and feeling he repeated one day, as we were standing together on the stairs in front of the Hogarth pictures, Dr. Johnson’s epitaph, on the painter : −

Every day we had out-of-door games, such as “Bowls,” “Aunt Sally,” and the like, Dickens leading off with great spirit and fun. Billiards came after dinner, and during the evening we had charades and dancing. There was no end to the new divertisements our kind host was in the habit of proposing, so that constant cheerfulness reigned at Gad’s Hill. He went into his work-room, as he called it, soon after breakfast, and wrote till twelve o’clock ; then he came out, ready for a long walk. The country about Gad’s Hill is admirably adapted for pedestrian exercise, and we went forth every day, rain or shine, for a stretcher. Twelve, fifteen, even twenty miles were not too much for Dickens, and many a long tramp we have had over the hop-country together. Chatham, Rochester, Cobbam Park, Maidstone, − anywhere, out under the open sky and into the free air! Then Dickens was at his best, and talked. Swinging his blackthorn stick, his lithe figure sprang forward over the ground, and it took a practised pair of legs to keep alongside of his voice. In these expeditions I heard from his own lips delightful reminiscences of his early days in the region we were then traversing, and charming narratives of incidents connected with the writing of his books.

Dickens’s association with Gad’s Hill, the city of Rochester, the road to Canterbury, and the old cathedral town itself, date back to his earliest years. In “ David Copperfield,” the most autobiographic of all his books, we find him, a little boy, (so small, that the landlady is called to peer over the counter and catch a glimpse of the tiny lad who possesses such “a spirit,”) trudging over the old Kent Road to Dover. “ I see myself,” he writes, “ as evening closes in, coming over the bridge at Rochester, footsore and tired, and eating bread that I had bought for supper. One or two little houses, with the notice, ‘ Lodgings for Travellers,’ hanging out, had tempted me; but I was afraid of spending the few pence I had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks of the trampers I had met or overtaken. I sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky; and toiling into Chatham, − which in that night’s aspect is a mere dream of chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like Noah’s arks, − crept, at last, upon a sort of grassgrown battery overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. Here I lay down near a cannon ; and, happy in the society of the sentry’s footsteps, though he knew no more of my being above him than the boys at Salem House had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until morning.” Thus early he noticed “the trampers ” which infest the old Dover Road, and observed them in their numberless gypsy-like variety; thus early he looked lovingly on Gad’s Hill Place, and wished it might be his own, if he ever grew up to be a man. His earliest memories were filled with pictures of the endless hop-grounds and orchards, and the little child “thought it all extremely beautiful! ”

Through the long years of his short life he was always consistent in his love for Kent and the old surroundings. When the after days came and while travelling abroad, how vividly the childish love returned ! As he passed rapidly over the road on his way to France he once wrote : “ Midway between Gravesend and Rochester the widening river was bearing the ships, white-sailed or black-smoked, out to sea, when I noticed by the wayside a very queer small boy.

“ ‘ Halloa!’ said I, to the very queer small boy, ‘ where do you live ? ’

“ ‘ At Chatham,’ says he.

“' What do you do there ?’ said I.

“ ‘ I go to school,’ says he.

“ I took him up in a moment, and we went on. Presently the very queer small boy says, ‘ This is Gad’s Hill we are coming to, where Falstaff went out to rob those travellers, and ran away.’

“ ‘ You know something about Falstaff, eh ? ’ said I.

“' All about him,’ said the very queer small boy. ‘ I am old (I am nine) and I read all sorts of books. But do let us stop at the top of the hill, and look at the house there, if you please! ’

“ ‘You admire that house,’ said I.

“ ‘ Bless you, sir,’ said the very queer small boy, ‘ when I was not more than half as old as nine, it used to be a treat for me to be brought to look at it. And now I am nine, I come by myself tolook at it. And ever since I can recollect, my father, seeing me so fond of it, has often said to me, “ If you were to be very persevering and were to work hard, you might some day come to live in it.” Though that’s impossible!’ said the very queer small boy, drawing a low breath, and now staring at the house out of window with all his might.

I was rather annoyed to be told this by the very queer small boy ; for that house happens to be my house, and I have reason to believe that what he said was true.”

What stay-at-home is there who does not know the Bull Inn at Rochester, from which Mr. Tupman and Mr. Jingle attended the ball, Mr. Jingle wearing Mr. Winkle’s coat ? or who has not seen in fancy the “ gypsy-tramp,” the “ show-tramp,” the “ cheap jack,” the “tramp-children,” and the “ Irish hoppers ” all passing over “ the Kentish Road, bordered” in their favorite resting-place “ on either side by a wood, and having on one hand, between the road-dust and the trees, a skirting patch of grass ? Wild-flowers grow in abundance on this spot, and it lies high and airy, with the distant river stealing steadily away to the ocean, like a man’s life,”

Sitting in the beautiful châlet during his later years and watching this same river stealing away like his own life, he never could find a harsh word for the tramps, and many and many a one has gone over the road rejoicing because of some kindness received from his hands. Every precaution was taken to protect a house exposed as his was to these wild rovers, several dogs being kept in the stable-yard, and the large outer gates locked. But he seldom made an excursion in any direction without finding some opportunity to benefit them. One of these many kindnesses came to the public ear during the last summer of his life. He was dressing in his own bedroom in the morning, when he saw two Savoyards and two bears come up to the Falstaff Inn opposite. While he was watching the odd company, two English bullies joined the little party and insisted upon taking the muzzles off the bears in order to have a dance with them. “ At once,” said Dickens, “ I saw there would be trouble, and I watched the scene with the greatest anxiety. In a moment I saw how things were going, and without delay I found myself at the gate. I called the gardener by the way, but he managed to hold himself at safe distance behind the fence. I put the Savoyards instantly in a secure position, asked the bullies what they were at, forced them to muzzle the bears again, under threat of sending for the police, and ended the whole affair in so short a time that I was not missed from the house. Unfortunately, while I was covered with dust and blood, for the bears had already attacked one of the men when I arrived, I heard a carriage roll by. I thought nothing of it at the time, but the report in the foreign journals which startled and shocked my friends so much came probably from the occupants of that vehicle. Unhappily, in my desire to save the men, I entirely forgot the dogs, and ordered the bears to be carried into the stable-yard until the scuffle should be over, when a tremendous tumult arose between the bears and the dogs. Fortunately we were able to separate them without injury, and the whole was so soon over that it was hard to make the family believe, when I came in to breakfast, that anything of the kind had gone forward.” It was the newspaper report, causing anxiety to some absent friends, which led, on inquiry, to this rehearsal of the incident.

Who does not know Cobham Park ? Has Dickens not invited us there in the old days to meet Mr. Pickwick, who pronounced it “ delightful ! − thoroughly delightful,” while “the skin of his expressive countenance was rapidly peeling off with exposure to the sun " ? Has he not invited the world to enjoy the loveliness of its solitudes with him, and peopled its haunts for us again and again ?

Our first real visit to Cobham Park was on a summer morning when Dickens walked out with us from his own gate, and, strolling quietly along the road, turned at length into what seemed a rural wooded pathway. At first we did not associate the spot in its spring freshness with that morning after Christmas when he had supped with the “ Seven Poor Travellers,” and lain awake all night with thinking of them ; and after parting in the morning with a kindly shake of the hand all round, started to walk through Cobham woods on his way towards London. Then on his lonely road, “the mists began to rise in the most beautiful manner and the sun to shine ; and as I went on,” he writes, “ through the bracing air, seeing the hoar frost sparkle everywhere, I felt as if all nature shared in the joy of the great Birthday. Going through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossy ground and among the brown leaves enhanced the Christmas sacredness by which I felt surrounded. As the whitened stems environed me, I thought how the Founder of the time had never raised his benignant hand, save to bless and heal, except in the case of one unconscious tree.”

Now we found ourselves on the same ground, surrounded by the full beauty of the summer-time. The hand of Art conspiring with Nature had planted rhododendrons, as if in their native soil beneath the forest-trees. They were in one universal flame of blossoms, as far as the eye could see. Lord and Lady D—, the kindest and most hospitable of neighbors, were absent ; there was not a living figure beside ourselves to break the solitude, and we wandered on and on with the wild birds for companions as in our native wildernesses. By and by we came near Cobham Hall, with its fine lawns and far-sweeping landscape, and workmen and gardeners and a general air of summer luxury. But to-day we were to go past the hall and lunch on a green slope under the trees, (was it just the spot where Mr. Pickwick tried the cold punch and found it satisfactory ? I never liked to ask !) and after making the old woods ring with the clatter and clink of our noontide meal, mingled with floods of laughter, were to come to the village, and to the very inn from which the disconsolate Mr. Tupman wrote to Mr. Pickwick, after his adventure with Miss Wardle. There is the old sign, and here we are at the Leather Bottle, Cobham, Kent. “ There’s no doubt whatever about that.” Dickens’s modesty would not allow him to go in, so we made the most of an outside study of the quaint old place as we strolled by; also of the cottages whose in mates were evidently no strangers to our party, but were cared for by them as English cottagers are so often looked after by the kindly ladies in their neighborhood. And there was the old churchyard, “ where the dead had been quietly buried ‘in the sure and certain hope ’ which Christmas-time inspired.” There too were the children, whom, seeing at their play, he could not but be loving, remembering who had loved them ! One party of urchins swinging on a gate reminded us vividly of Collins, the painter. Here was his composition to the life. Every lover of rural scenery must recall the little fellow on the top of a five-barred gate in the picture Collins painted, known widely by the fine engraving made of it at the time. And there too were the blossoming gardens, which now shone in their new garments of resurrection. The stillness of midsummer noon, crept over everything as we lingered in the sun and shadow of the old village. Slowly circling the hall, we came upon an avenue of lime-trees leading up to a stately doorway in the distance. The path was overgrown, birds and squirrels were hopping unconcernedly over the ground, and the gates and chains were rusty with disuse. “ This avenue,” said Dickens, as we leaned upon the wall and looked into its cool shadows, “is never crossed except to bear the dead body of the lord of the hall to its last resting-place ; a remnant of superstition, and one Lord and Lady D—would be glad to do away with, but the villagers would never hear of such a thing, and would consider it certain death to any one who should go or come through this entrance. It would be a highly unpopular movement for the present occupants to attempt to uproot this absurd idea, and they have given up all thoughts of it for the time.”

It was on a subsequent visit to Cobham village that we explored the “ College,” an old foundation of the reign of Edward III. for the aged poor of both sexes. Each occupant of the various small apartments was sitting at his or her door, which opened on a grassy enclosure with arches like an abandoned cloister of some old cathedral. Such a motley society, brought together under such unnatural circumstances, would of course interest Dickens. He seemed to take a profound pleasure in wandering about the place, which was evidently filled with the associations of former visits in his own mind. He was usually possessed by a childlike eagerness to go to any spot which he had made up his mind it was best to visit, and quick to come away, but he lingered long about this leafy old haunt on that Sunday afternoon.

Of Cobham Hall itself much might be written without conveying the smallest idea of its peculiar interest to this generation. The terraces, and lawns, and cedar-trees, and deer-park, the names of Edward III. and Elizabeth, the famous old Cobhams and their long line of distinguished descendants, their invaluable pictures and historic chapel, have all been the common property of the past and of the present. But the air of comfort and hospitality diffused about the place by the present owners belongs exclusively to our time, and a little Swiss châlet removed from Gad’s Hill, standing not far from the great house, will always connect the name of Charles Dickens with the place he loved so well. The châlet has been transferred thither as a tribute from the Dickens family to the kindness of their friends and former neighbors. We could not fail to think of the connection his name would always have with Cobham Hall, though he was then still by our side, and the little châlet yet remained embowered in its own green trees overlooking the sail-dotted Medway as it flowed towards the Thames.

The old city of Rochester, to which we have already referred as being particularly well known to all Mr. Pickwick’s admirers, is within walking distance from Gad’s Hill Place and was the object of daily visits from its occupants. The ancient castle, one of the best ruins in England, as Dickens loved to say, because less has been done to it, rises with rugged walls precipitously from the river. It is wholly unrestored ; just enough care has been bestowed to prevent its utter destruction, but otherwise it stands as it has stood and crumbled from year to year. We climbed painfully up to the highest steep of its loftiest tower, and looked down on the wonderful scene spread out in the glory of a summer sunset. Below, a clear trickling stream flowed and tinkled as it has done since the rope was first lowered in the year 800 to bring the bucket up over the worn stones which still remain to attest the fact. How happy Dickens was in the beauty of that scene ! What delight he took in rebuilding the old place, with every legend of which he proved himself familiar, and repeopling it out of the storehouse of his fancy. “ Here was the kitchen, and there the dininghall ! How frightfully dark they must have been in those days, with such small slits for windows, and the fireplaces without chimneys ! There were the galleries ; this is one of the four towers ; the others, you will understand, corresponded with this ; and now, if you ’re not dizzy, we will come out on the battlements for the view ! ” Up we went, of course, following our cheery leader until we stood among the topmost wall-flowers, which were waving yellow and sweet in the sunset air. East and west, north and south, our eyes traversed the beautiful garden land of Kent, the land Shakespeare also loved and made immortal. Below lay the city of Rochester on one hand, and in the heart of it an old inn where a carrier was even then getting out, or putting in, horses and wagon for the night. “ That is the inn with the new chimney,” said Dickens, “over which Charles’s Wain was seen to rise by the carrier at ‘ four by the day,’ as Shakespeare tells us in ‘ King Henry IV.’ I discovered it as I was walking into Rochester one morning at the same hour, and saw the constellation in that very position.” The chimney looks old enough by this time, and we fancy travellers fare no better at the inn now than when Shakespeare has described their entertainment in his play. Improvement has not kept pace with time in Rochester, but our feet are allowed to walk and our minds to dwell where he walked and his mind so often dwelt in his marvellous earthly course.

Below, on the other side, was the river Medway, from whose depths the castle once rose steeply. Now the débris and perhaps also a slight swerving of the river from its old course have left a rough margin, over which it would not be difficult to make an ascent. Rochester Bridge, too, is here, and the “ windy hills ” in the distance ; and again, on the other hand, Chatham, and beyond, the Thames, with the sunset tingeing the many-colored sails. We were not easily persuaded to descend from our picturesque vantageground ; but the master’s hand led us gently on from point to point, until we found ourselves, before we were aware, on the grassy slope outside the castle wall. Besides, there was the cathedral to be visited, and the tomb of Richard Watts, “ with the effigy of worthy Master Richard starting out of it like a ship’s figure-head.”

After seeing the cathedral, we went along the silent High street, past queer Elizabethan houses with endless gables and fences and lattice-windows, until we came to Watts’s Charity, the house of entertainment for six poor travellers. The establishment is so familiar to all lovers of Dickans through his description of it in the article entitled “ Seven Poor Travellers” among his “Uncommercial ” papers, that little is left to be said on that subject; except perhaps that no autobiographic sketch ever gave a more faithful picture, a closer portrait, than is there conveyed.

Dickens’s fancy for Rochester, and his numberless associations with it, have left traces of that city in almost everything he wrote. From the time when Mr. Snodgrass first discovered the castle ruin from Rochester Bridge, to the last chapter of Edwin Drood, we observe hints of the city’s quaintness or silence; the unending pavements, which go on and on till the wisest head would be puzzled to know where Rochester ends and where Chatham begins ; the disposition of Father Time to have his own unimpeded way therein, and of the gray cathedral towers which loom up in the background of many a sketch and tale. Rochester, too, is on the way to Canterbury, Dickens’s best loved cathedral, the home of Agnes Wickfield, the sunny spot in the life and memory of David Copperfield. David was particularly small, as we are told, when he first saw Canterbury, but he was already familiar with Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, The Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, and Robinson Crusoe, who came out, as he says, a glorious host, to keep him company. Naturally, the calm old place, the green nooks, the beauty of the cathedral, possessed a better chance with him than with many others, and surely no one could have loved them more. In the later years of his life the crowning-point of the summer holidays was “a pilgrimage to Canterbury.”

The sun shone from end to end through the day when he chose to carry us thither. Early in the morning the whole house was astir ; large hampers were packed, ladies and gentlemen were clad in gay midsummer attire, and, soon after breakfast, huge carriages with four horses, and postilions with red coats and top-boots, after the fashion of the olden time, were drawn up before the door. Presently we were moving lightly over the road, the hop-vines dancing on the poles on either side, the orchards looking invitingly cool, the oast-houses fanning with their wide arms, the river glowing from time to time through the landscape. We made such a clatter passing through Rochester, that all the main street turned out to see the carriages, and, being obliged to stop the horses a moment, a shopkeeper, desirous of discovering Dickens among the party, hit upon the wrong man, and confused an humble individual among the company by calling a crowd, pointing him out as Dickens, and making him the mark of eager eyes. This incident seemed very odd to us in a place he knew so well. On we clattered, leaving the echoing street behind us, on and on for many a mile, until noon, when, finding a green wood and clear stream by the roadside, we encamped under the shadow of the trees in a retired spot for lunch. Again we went on, through quaint towns and lonely roads, until we came to Canterbury, in the yellow afternoon. The bells for service were ringing as we drove under the stone archway into the soundless streets. The whole town seemed to be enjoying a simultaneous nap, from which it was aroused by our horses’ hoofs. Out the people ran, at this signal, into the street, and we were glad to descend at some distance from the centre of the city, thus leaving the excitement behind us. We had been exposed to the hot rays of the sun all day, and the change into the shadow of the cathedral was refreshing. Service was going forward as we entered; we sat down, therefore, and joined our voices with those of the choristers. Dickens, with tireless observation, noted how sleepy and inane were the faces of many of the singers, to whom this beautiful service was but a sickening monotony of repetition. The words, too, were gabbled over in a manner anything but impressive. He was such a downright enemy to form, as substituted for religion, that any dash of untruth or unreality was abhorrent to him. When the last sounds died away in the cathedral we came out again into the cloisters, and sauntered about until the shadows fell over the beautiful enclosure. We were hospitably entreated, and listened to many an historical tale of tomb and stone and grassy nook; but under all we were listening to the heart of our companion, who had so often wandered thither in his solitude, and was now rereading the stories these urns had prepared for him.

During one of his winter visits, he says (in “ Copperfield ”): −

“ Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets with a sober pleasure that calmed my spirits and eased my heart. There were the old signs, the old names over the shops, the old people serving in them. It appeared so long since I had been a school-boy there, that I wondered the place was so little changed, until I reflected how little I was changed myself. Strange to say, that quiet influence which was inseparable in my mind from Agnes seemed to pervade even the city where she dwelt. The venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks, whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence would have done ; the battered gateways, once stuck full with statues, long thrown down and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon them ; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls ; the ancient houses ; the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden ;−everywhere, in everything, I felt the same serene air, the same calm, thoughtful, softening spirit.”

Walking away and leaving Canterbury behind us forever, we came again into the voiceless streets, past a “ very old house bulging out over the road, .... quite spotless in its cleanliness, the old-fashioned brass knocker on the low, arched door ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkling like a star,” the very house, perhaps, “ with angles and corners and carvings and mouldings,” where David Copperfield was sent to school. We were turned off with a laughing reply, when we ventured to accuse this particular house of being the one, and were told there were several that “ would do ” ; which was quite true, for nothing could be more quaint, more satisfactory to all, from the lovers of Chaucer to the lovers of Dickens, than this same city of Canterbury. The sun had set as we rattled noisily out of the ancient place that night, and along the high road, which was quite novel in its evening aspect. There was no lingering now; on and on we went, the postilions flying up and down on the backs of the huge horses, their red coats glancing in the occasional gleams of wayside lamps, fire-flies making the orchards shine, the sunset lighting up vast clouds that lay across the western sky, and the whole scene filled with evening stillness. When we stopped to change horses, the quiet was almost oppressive. Soon after nine we espied the welcome lantern of Gad’s Hill Place and the open gates. And so ended Dickens’s last pilgrimage to Canterbury.

There was another interesting spot near Gad’s Hill Place, which was one of Dickens’s haunts, and this was the “ Druid-stone,” as it is called, at Maidstone. This is within walking distance of his house, along a breezy hillside road, which we remember blossomy and wavy in the summer season, with open spaces in the hedges where one may look over wide hilly slopes, and at times come upon strange cuts down into the chalk which pervades this district. We turned into a lane from the dusty road, and, following our leader over a barred gate, came into wide grassy fields full of summer’s bloom and glory. A short walk farther brought us to the Druid-stone, which Dickens thought to be, from the fitness of its position, simply a vantage-ground chosen by priests, − whether Druid or Christian of course it would be impossible to say, − from which to address a multitude. The rock served as a kind of background and soundingboard, while the beautiful sloping of the sward upward from the speaker made it an excellent position for outof-door discourses. On this day it was only a blooming solitude, where the birds had done all the talking, until we arrived. It was a fine afternoon haunt, and one worthy of a visit, apart from the associations which make the place dear.

One of the weirdest neighborhoods to Gad’s Hill, and one of those most closely associated with Dickens, is the village of Cooling. A cloudy day proved well enough for Cooling; indeed, was undoubtedly chosen by the adroit master of hospitalities as being a fitting sky to show the dark landscape of “Great Expectations.” The pony carriage went thither to accompany the walking party and carry the baskets ; the whole way, as we remember, leading on among narrow lanes where heavy carriages were seldom seen. We are told in the novel, “ On every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so thick that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our village − a direction which they never accepted, for they never came there − was invisible to me until I was close under it.” The lanes certainly wore that aspect of never being accepted as a way of travel; but this was a delightful recommendation to our walk, for summer kept her own way there, and grass and wild-flowers were abundant. It was already noon, and low clouds and mists were lying about the earth and sky as we approached a forlorn little village on the edge of the wide marshes described in the opening of the novel. This was Cooling, and passing by the few cottages, the decayed rectory, and straggling buildings, we came at length to the churchyard. It took but a short time to make us feel at home there, with the marshes on one hand, the low wall over which Pip saw the convict climb before he dared to run away; “ the five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, .... sacred to the memory of five little brothers, .... to which I had been indebted for a belief that they had all been born on their backs, with their hands in their trousers pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence”; − all these points, combined with the general dreariness of the landscape, the far-stretching marshes, and the distant sea-line, soon revealed to us that this was Pip’s country, and we might momently expect to see the convict’s head, or to hear the clank of his chain, over that low wall.

We were in the churchyard now, having left the pony within eye-shot, and taken the baskets along with us, and were standing on one of those very lozenges, somewhat grass-grown by this time, and deciphering the inscriptions. On tiptoe we could get a wide view of the marsh, with the wind sweeping in a lonely limitless way through the tall grasses. Presently hearing Dickens’s cheery call, we turned to see what he was doing. He had chosen a good flat gravestone in one corner (the corner farthest from the marsh and Pip’s little brothers and the expected convict), had spread a wide napkin thereupon after the fashion of a domestic dinner-table, and was rapidly transferring the contents of the hampers to that point. The horrible whimsicality of trying to eat and make merry under these deplorable circumstances, the tragi-comic character of the scene, appeared to take him by surprise. He at once threw himself into it (as he says in “ Copperfield ” he was wont to do with anything to which he had laid his hand) with fantastic eagerness. Having spread the table after the most approved style, he suddenly disappeared behind the wall for a moment, transformed himself by the aid of a towel and napkin into a firstclass head-waiter, reappeared, laid a row of plates along the top of the wall, as at a bar-room or eating-house, again retreated to the other side with some provisions, and, making the gentlemen of the party stand up to the wall, went through the whole play with most entire gravity. When we had wound up with a good laugh and were again seated together on the grass around the table, we espied two wretched figures, not the convicts this time, although we might have easily persuaded ourselves so, but only tramps gazing at us over the wall from the marsh side as they approached, and finally sitting down just outside the churchyard gate. They looked wretchedly hungry and miserable, and Dickens said at once, starting up, “ Come, let us offer them a glass of wine and something good for lunch.” He was about to carry them himself, when what he considered a happy thought seemed to strike him. “ You shall carry it to them,” he said, turning to one of the ladies; “it will be less like a charity and more like a kindness if one of you should speak to the poor souls ! ” This was so much in character for him, who stopped always to choose the most delicate way of doing a kind deed, that the memory of this little incident remains, while much, alas ! of his wit and wisdom have vanished beyond the power of reproducing. We feasted on the satisfaction the tramps took in their lunch, long after our own was concluded ; and seeing them well off on their road again, took up our own way to Gad’s Hill Place. How comfortable it looked on our return; how beautifully the afternoon gleams of sunshine shone upon the holly-trees by the porch ; how we turned away from the door and went into the playground, where we bowled on the green turf, until the tall maid in her spotless cap was seen bringing the five-o’clock tea thitherward; how the dews and the setting sun warned us at last we must prepare for dinner ; and how Dickens played longer and harder than any one of the company, scorning the idea of tea at that hour, and beating his ball instead, quite the youngest of the company up to the last moment! − all this returns with vivid distinctness as I write these inadequate words.

Many days and weeks passed over after those June days were ended before we were to see Dickens again. Our meeting then was at the station in London, on our way to Gad’s Hill once more. He was always early at a railway station, he said, if only to save himself the unnecessary and wasteful excitement hurry commonly produces : and so he came to meet us with a cheery manner, as if care were shut up in some desk or closet he had left behind, and he were ready to make the day a gay one, whatever the sun might say to it. A small roll of manuscript in his hand led him soon to confess that a new story was already begun ; but this communication was made in the utmost confidence, as if to account for any otherwise unexplainable absences, physically or mentally, from our society, which might occur. But there were no gaps during that autumn afternoon of return to Gad’s Hill. He told us how summer had brought him no vacation this year, and only two days of recreation. One of those, he said, was spent with his family at " Rosherville Gardens,” “the place,” as a huge advertisement informed us, “ to spend a happy day.” His curiosity with regard to all entertainments for the people, he said to us, carried him thither, and he seemed to have been amused and rewarded by his visit. He said the previous Sunday had found him in London ; he was anxious to reach Gad’s Hill before the afternoon, but in order to accomplish this he must walk nine miles to a way station, which he did. Coming to the little village, he inquired where the station was, and, being shown in the wrong direction, walked calmly down a narrow road which did not lead there at all. “ On I went,” he said, “ in the perfect sunshine, over yellow leaves, without even a wandering breeze to break the silence, when suddenly I came upon three or four antique wooden houses standing under trees on the borders of a lovely stream, and a little farther, upon an ancient doorway to a grand hall, perhaps the home of some bishop of the olden time. The road came to an end there, and I was obliged to retrace my steps ; but anything more entirely peaceful and beautiful in its aspect on that autumnal day than this retreat, forgotten by the world, I almost never saw.” He was eager, too, to describe for our entertainment one of the yearly cricket-matches among the villagers at Gad’s Hill which had just come off. Some of the toasts at the supper afterward were as old as the time of Queen Anne. For instance, −

delivered with all seriousness ; a later one was, “ May the walls of old England never be covered with French polish.”

Once more we recall a morning at Gad’s Hill, a soft white haze over everything, and the yellow sun burning through. The birds were singing, and beauty and calm pervaded the whole scene. We strayed through Cobham Park and saw the lovely vistas through the autumnal haze ; once more we reclined in the cool châlet in the afternoon, and watched the vessels going and coming upon the ever-moving river. Suddenly all has vanished; and now, neither spring nor autumn, nor flowers nor birds, nor dawn nor sunset, nor the ever-moving river, can be the same to any of us again. We have all drifted down upon the river of Time, and one has already sailed out into the illimitable ocean.