"So far I have not in the smallest degree
exaggerated or overdrawn any one of the matters I
have recounted. Every word has been written with
the greatest care to truth and accuracy.

"S. T. A."

* * * * *

To cut our ghost story short, without adding another chapter, Mr.
Aveling, on looking into the dark chasm by the meagre light of the
lowered candle, beheld, to his amazement, the reflection of his own face
in the water of a large cistern underneath the staircase, the house
having formerly been supplied from the "large brewery" a short distance
off. The unearthly noise was no doubt caused by air in the pipes,
through which the water rushed when suddenly turned on by the brewers,
who were working late at night. In _Great Expectations_ it is stated
that:--"The brewery buildings had a little lane of communication with
it" [the courtyard of Satis House], "and the wooden gates of that lane
stood open" [at the time of Pip's first visit, when Estella showed him
over the premises], "and all the brewery beyond stood open, away to the
high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused. The cold wind seemed
to blow colder there, than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise
in howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise
of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea."

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Mr. Aveling subsequently informed me that the vessel in which the
king took his departure continued to be used in the Royal Navy for many
years as a lighter--its name being altered to the "Royal Escape."
Afterwards it was used as a watch-vessel in the Coastguard service at
Chatham, and was eventually broken up at Sheerness Dockyard so recently
as 1876.

[5] "A Perambulation of Kent: Conteining the Description, Hystorie, and
Customes of that Shire. Written in the yeere 1570 by William Lambarde of
Lincoln's Inne Gent."

CHAPTER IV.

ROCHESTER CASTLE.

"I took up my hat, and went out, climbed to the
top of the old Castle, and looked over the windy
hills that slope down to the Medway."--_The Seven
Poor Travellers._

TO the lover of Dickens, both the Castle and Cathedral of Rochester
appeal with almost equal interest. The Castle, however, which stands on
an eminence on the right bank of the river Medway, close to the bridge,
claims prior attention, and a few l