tham, when he and his staff rode by. We were
great walkers in those days, and used to ramble over Cobham Park, and
round by Shorne, and down to the dreary marshes beyond Higham. But this
was not a favourite walk with us, and we girls never went there alone.
The banks on the Rochester road--past Davies's Straits--were full of
sweet violets, white and purple; and the fungi, lichens, flowers, and
ferns about Shorne and Cobham yet linger in my memory as things of
rarest beauty. We always thought that the coachman, "Old Chumley," as he
was called, was old Weller. He was a fine, cheery, trustworthy man; and
once when my father was in London, he had one of my sisters and
myself--girls then about fifteen and thirteen--put under his charge to
be delivered to him at the end of the journey. The dear old fellow took
as much care of us as if he had been our father himself. I remember my
brothers gave him a new whip, and he was very fond of us all.

E. L. L.

* * * * *

* * * We had at a subsequent visit to Gad's Hill Place, on the
invitation of our hospitable friends, Major and Mrs. Budden, the
pleasure of a long and interesting conversation with Mr. James Hulkes,
J.P., of the Little Hermitage, Frindsbury, a Kentish man, who came to
live here more than sixty years ago, and who was thus a very near
neighbour of Charles Dickens during the whole of the time that he
resided at Gad's Hill Place. We were shown into a delightful room at the
back of the house, overlooking the shrubberies of the mansion--in the
distance appearing the high ground on which stands the monument to
Charles Larkin. The room is a happy combination of part workshop, with a
fine lathe and assortment of tools fitted round it--part study, with a
nice collection of books, engravings and pictures (some of hunting
scenes) on the walls--and part naturalist's den, with cases of stuffed
birds and animals, guns and fishing-rods--the fragrant odour of tobacco
breathing friendly welcome to a visitor of smoking proclivities. The
varied tastes of the owner were sufficiently apparent, and a long chat
of over two hours seemed to us but a few minutes.

Mr. Hulkes said he just remembered the road from Strood to Gad's Hill
being cut through the sands down to the chalk. It was for some time
afterwards called "Davies's Straits," after the Rev. George Davies, the
then Chairman of the Turnpike Road