During my stay in England in that summer of 1869, I made many excursions
with Dickens both around the city and into the country. Among the most
memorable of these London rambles was a visit to the General
Post-Office, by arrangement with the authorities there, a stroll among
the cheap theatres and lodging-houses for the poor, a visit to
Furnival's Inn and the very room in it where "Pickwick" was written, and
a walk through the thieves' quarter. Two of these expeditions were made
on two consecutive nights, under the protection of police detailed for
the service. On one of these nights we also visited the lock-up houses,
watch-houses, and opium-eating establishments. It was in one of the
horrid opium-dens that he gathered the incidents which he has related in
the opening pages of "Edwin Drood." In a miserable court we found the
haggard old woman blowing at a kind of pipe made of an old penny
ink-bottle. The identical words which Dickens puts into the mouth of
this wretched creature in "Edwin Drood" we heard her croon as we leaned
over the tattered bed on which she was lying. There was something
hideous in the way this woman kept repeating, "Ye'll pay up
according, deary, won't ye?" and the Chinamen and Lascars made
never-to-be-forgotten pictures in the scene. I watched Dickens intently
as he went among these outcasts of London, and saw with what deep
sympathy he encountered the sad and suffering in their horrid abodes. At
the door of one of the penny lodging-houses (it was growing toward
morning, and the raw air almost cut one to the bone), I saw him snatch a
little child out of its poor drunken mother's arms, and bear it in,
filthy as it was, that it might be warmed and cared for. I noticed that
whenever he entered one of these wretched rooms he had a word of cheer
for its inmates, and that when he left the apartment he always had a
pleasant "Good night" or "God bless you" to bestow upon them. I do not
think his person was ever recognized in any of these haunts, except in
one instance. As we entered a low room in the worst alley we had yet
visited, in which were huddled together some forty or fifty
half-starved-looking wretches, I noticed a man among the crowd
whispering to another and pointing out Dickens. Both men regarded him
with marked interest all the time he remained in the room, and tried to
get as near him, without observation, as possible. As he turned to go
out, one of these men pressed forward and said, "Good night, sir," with
much feeling, in reply to Dickens's parting word.
Among other places, we went, a little past midnight, into one of the
Casual Wards, which were so graphically described, some years ago, in an
English magazine, by a gentleman who, as a pretended tramp, went in on a
reporting expedition. We walked through an avenue of poor tired sleeping
forms, all lying flat on the floor, and not one of them raised a head to
look at us as we moved thoughtfully up the aisle of sorrowful humanity.
I think we counted sixty or seventy prostrate beings, who had come in
for a night's shelter, and had lain down worn out with fatigue and
hunger. There was one pale young face to which I whispered Dickens's
attention, and he stood over it with a look of sympathizing interest not
to be easily forgotten. There was much ghastly comicality mingled with
the horror in several of the places we visited on those two nights. We
were standing in a room half filled with people of both sexes, whom the
police accompanying us knew to be thieves. Many of these abandoned
persons had served out their terms in jail or prison, and would probably
be again sentenced under the law. They were all silent and sullen as we
entered the room, until an old woman spoke up with a strong, beery
voice: "Good evening, gentlemen. We are all wery poor, but strictly
honest." At which cheerful apocryphal statement, all the inmates of the
room burst into boisterous laughter, and began pelting the imaginative
female with epithets uncomplimentary and unsavory. Dickens's quick eye
never for a moment ceased to study all these scenes of vice and gloom,
and he told me afterwards that, bad as the whole thing was, it had
improved infinitely since he first began to study character in those
regions of crime and woe.
Between eleven and twelve o'clock on one of the evenings I have
mentioned we were taken by Dickens's favorite Detective W---- into a
sort of lock-up house, where persons are brought from the streets who
have been engaged in brawls, or detected in the act of thieving, or who
have, in short, committed any offence against the laws. Here they are
examined for commitment by a sort of presiding officer, who sits all
night for that purpose. We looked into some of the cells, and found them
nearly filled with wretched-looking objects who had been brought in that
night. To this establishment are also brought lost children who are
picked up in the streets by the police,--children who have wandered away
from their homes, and are not old enough to tell the magistrate where
they live. It was well on toward morning, and we were sitting in
conversation with one of the officers, when the ponderous door opened
and one of these small wanderers was brought in. She was the queerest
little figure I ever beheld, and she walked in, holding the police
officer by the hand as solemnly and as quietly if she were attending her
own obsequies. She was between four and five years old, and had on what
was evidently her mother's bonnet,--an enormous production, resembling a
sort of coal-scuttle, manufactured after the fashion of ten or fifteen
years ago. The child had, no doubt, caught up this wonderful head-gear
in the absence of her parent, and had gone forth in quest of adventure.
The officer reported that he had discovered her in the middle of the
street, moving ponderingly along, without any regard to the horses and
vehicles all about her. When asked where she lived, she mentioned a
street which only existed in her own imagination, and she knew only her
Christian name. When she was interrogated by the proper authorities,
without the slightest apparent discomposure she replied in a steady
voice, as she thought proper, to their questions. The magistrate
inadvertently repeated a question as to the number of her brothers and
sisters, and the child snapped out, "I told ye wunst; can't ye hear?"
When asked if she would like anything, she gayly answered, "Candy, cake
and _candy_." A messenger was sent out to procure these commodities,
which she instantly seized on their arrival and began to devour. She
showed no signs of fear, until one of the officers untied the huge
bonnet and took it off, when she tearfully insisted upon being put into
it again. I was greatly impressed by the ingenious efforts of the
excellent men in the room to learn from the child where she lived, and
who her parents were. Dickens sat looking at the little figure with
profound interest, and soon came forward and asked permission to speak
with the child. Of course his request was granted, and I don't know when
I have enjoyed a conversation more. She made some very smart answers,
which convulsed us all with laughter as we stood looking on; and the
creator of "little Nell" and "Paul Dombey" gave her up in despair. He
was so much interested in the little vagrant, that he sent a messenger
next morning to learn if the rightful owner of the bonnet had been
found. Report came back, on a duly printed form, setting forth that the
anxious father and mother had applied for the child at three o'clock in
the morning, and had borne her away in triumph to her home.
It was a warm summer afternoon towards the close of the day, when
Dickens went with us to visit the London Post-Office. He said: "I know
nothing which could give a stranger a better idea of the size of London
than that great institution. The hurry and rush of letters! men up to
their chin in letters! nothing but letters everywhere! the air full of
letters!--suddenly the clock strikes; not a person is to be seen, _nor_
a letter: only one man with a lantern peering about and putting one
drop-letter into a box." For two hours we went from room to room, with
him as our guide, up stairs and down stairs, observing the myriad clerks
at their various avocations, with letters for the North Pole, for the
South Pole, for Egypt and Alaska, Darien and the next street.
The "Blind Man," as he was called, appeared to afford Dickens as much
amusement as if he saw his work then for the first time; but this was
one of the qualities of his genius; there was inexhaustibility and
freshness in everything to which he turned his attention. The ingenuity
and loving care shown by the "Blind Man" in deciphering or guessing at
the apparently inexplicable addresses on letters and parcels excited his
admiration. "What a lesson to all of us," he could not help saying, "to
be careful in preparing our letters for the mail!" His own were always
directed with such exquisite care, however, that had he been brother to
the "Blind Man," and considered it his special work in life to teach
others how to save that officer trouble, he could hardly have done
better.
Leaving the hurry and bustle of the Post-Office behind us, we strolled
out into the streets of London. It was past eight o'clock, but the
beauty of the soft June sunset was only then overspreading the misty
heavens. Every sound of traffic had died out of those turbulent
thoroughfares; now and then a belated figure would hurry past us and
disappear, or perhaps in turning the corner would linger to "take a good
look" at Charles Dickens. But even these stragglers soon dispersed,
leaving us alone in the light of day and the sweet living air to
heighten the sensation of a dream. We came through White Friars to the
Temple, and thence into the Temple Garden, where our very voices echoed.
Dickens pointed up to Talfourd's room, and recalled with tenderness the
merry hours they had passed together in the old place. Of course we
hunted out Goldsmith's abode, and Dr. Johnson's, saw the site of the
Earl of Essex's palace, and the steps by which he was wont to descend to
the river, now so far removed. But most interesting of all to us there
was "Pip's" room, to which Dickens led us, and the staircase where the
convict stumbled up in the dark, and the chimney nearest the river
where, although less exposed than in "Pip's" days, we could well
understand how "the wind shook the house that night like discharges of
cannon, or breakings of a sea." We looked in at the dark old staircase,
so dark on that night when "the lamps were blown out, and the lamps on
the bridges and the shore were shuddering," then went on to take a peep,
half shuddering ourselves, at the narrow street where "Pip" by and by
found a lodging for the convict. Nothing dark could long survive in our
minds on that June night, when the whole scene was so like the airy work
of imagination. Past the Temple, past the garden to the river, mistily
fair, with a few boats moving upon its surface, the convict's story was
forgotten, and we only knew this was Dickens's home, where he had lived
and written, lying in the calm light of its fairest mood.
* * * * *
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 any time
"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:--
"The hand of him here torpid lies,
That drew the essential form of grace;
Here closed in death the attentive eyes
That saw the manners in the face."
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, Cobham 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, dates 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
grass-grown 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 to look 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 inmates 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
which 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 person 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 an
adequate 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,
during our visit, 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 dining-hall! 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 beloved of poets through the centuries. 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. A procession, with banners and music, was moving slowly by
the tavern, and the quaint costumes in which the men were dressed
suggested days long past, when far other scenes were going forward in
this locality. It was almost like a pageant marching out of antiquity
for our delectation. Our master of ceremonies revelled that day in
repeopling the queer old streets down into which we were looking from
our charming elevation. His delightful fancy seemed especially alert on
that occasion, and we lived over again with him many a chapter in the
history of Rochester, full of interest to those of us who had come from
a land where all is new and comparatively barren of romance.
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 vantage-ground; 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 figurehead."
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 Dickens 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 Blas, 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 merrily 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 highway, 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.