pe 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