 Chapter 5 Sir Robert Sherland and his horse have kept me away from Chatham long enough, and I must now return to our pilgrims' quarters. I lay awake some time that night, thinking of the phantom hand and the hidden treasure in Gundahl's tower, and imagining a variety of incidents which might have arisen in the olden time out of the search for the supernaturally guarded gold. The thoughts that came and went as I lay in that strange room, sometimes with my eyes closed, sometimes watching the changeful lights and shadows produced by the passing of light clouds over the moon, crystallized just before I fell asleep into something like the form given to them in the following tale. The Phantom Hand Bishop Gundahl, in whose time the nave and tower of Rochester Cathedral were erected, had been in his grave four hundred years, and the era was younger by as long a period than it is now, when they lived in that city, in a crazy old wooden house at the foot of the bridge, an old man named Roger Reynum. In that old house Roger had lived many years, the only other occupant since the death of his wife, which had occurred a long time before the period at which he had introduced to the reader, being his only child, a maiden over whose head twenty summers had passed at that same epoch, leaving their roses and lilies reflected upon her fair face, their blue skies in her eyes and the sheen of their suns upon her golden hair. Roger had no definite occupation. He owned some shops in the High Street and a score of cottages in the lanes and yards adjacent, where the harshness he displayed in collecting the rents from the poor tenants made him a particularly unwelcome visitor. Joe Joyner, who lived in one of his poor tumble-down houses in Five Bells Lane, used to say that his beetle-brows cast a shadow over the street whenever he entered it. He was known, too, to lend money to the needy at high rates of interest, and as he took good care to have good security for the repayment of the principal, he had the repute of being as wealthy as he was known to be avaricious. On the evening on which this story opens, a fine evening in April, the old miser might have been seen protruding his head from the door, and with his thin hand shading his eyes from the level rays of the westering sun, looking across the bridge and up the street, muttering inarticulately, owing to a sound which he omitted when displeased, and which can be compared with no other in nature except the subdued growl of a carnivorous beast. He closed the door and returned to his seat by a barred window. I won't have it! he growled, striking the oaken table with a stout ash-stick. She shall marry the miller, or she shan't have a penny of my money. I will leave it all to St Bartholomew's hospital, rather than it shall be squandered by a young fellow who, having nothing of his own, doesn't know the pleasure of possessing money. The soliloquy was interrupted by the quiet lifting of the latch, and the entrance of as lovely a specimen of the feminine moiety of humanity as could have been found in Rochester, I or in Chatham and Strewd besides. "'So you have got back at last,' said Roger, with a distrustful glance at the young beauty. "'Have I been long?' she returned, as she set down a basket which she had been carrying, and removed her hat. "'Long!' growled the miser. "'You have been loitering, you jade! You've been talking to that young Popping J. Hubert, the boya's son.' "'Indeed I have not loitered, Father,' returned his daughter, and with Hubert I only exchanged a fair evening, as I passed his father's shop.' "'I warrant me your eyes,' said a good deal more than fair evening, minx,' said Roger. "'But I won't have it. Mind me, Mildred, I won't have it. Why, he has not a bit of bread of his own to give to a beggar.' "'Will riches without love bring happiness, Father?' Mildred inquired, raising her as your eyes to the miser's sordid countenance. "'Love, ba!' returned the old man, with a gesture of contempt. When poverty comes in at a door, love flies out at the window.' "'I can never love the miller,' said his daughter with a sigh. "'And you shall never have a penny of mine if you don't,' exclaimed Roger, striking the table with his stick, as if to give weight to his words. "'Mind that, Mildred, not a penny. Why, Gaffer Jillingham has the best mill within a dozen miles, and some goodly pasture land with fat beaves grazing on it. And he has saved money, Mildred. Think of that girl, money that will buy everything that heart can desire.' "'It cannot buy love, Father,' rejoined Mildred. "'Love!' ejaculated the miser, stamping on the bare floor with his stick. "'How, the girl talks! I haven't patience to listen to her. Look, you, Mildred, you will be the wife of Gaffer Jillingham in a month from now. Mark that. Now go to your room, and don't let me see your face again until you can show a more dutiful and becoming spirit.' Mildred obeyed, and on the following day did not leave her chamber, the window of which looked upon the pleasant path beneath the castle wall. Hubert, the bowyard's son, walking that way in the evening, heard the casement opened very quietly, and, glancing upward, beheld Mildred's tearful countenance. "'Hush!' she whispered, touching her lips with her finger. "'You must not speak to me. I am to be the wife of Gaffer Jillingham within a month. Oh, what is to be done?' "'Gaffer Jillingham!' exclaimed Hubert, his handsome countenance reddening with indignation. Why, he is almost as old as your father, and doesn't bear a much better—I mean, he doesn't bear a very good character. "'But he is rich,' said Mildred, with a touch of bitterness in her tone and manner, and gold, in my father's estimation, makes amends for everything else that may be deficient. "'Such a sacrifice must not, shall not be,' exclaimed Hubert, with clenched hands and flashing eyes. "'And who will prevent it, young man?' demanded Roger Raynham, creeping round the corner, from the concealment of which he had been listening to the lover's conversation. "'Who will prevent it, I say?' he repeated, shaking his ash-stick at the young boya. "'I will,' replied Hubert, confronting him with a stern and indignant glance. "'You—you impudent violet, you beggar!' exclaimed the enraged miser, menacing him with his stick. "'Look you here, Master Raynham,' said Hubert. "'You are Mildred's father, and an old man, and I bear from you what I would not brook from any other man, my own father accepted. But I am an honest man, and no beggar. And if you touch me with that stick, by all the saints in that calendar, I will pitch you into the river.' The ash-stick was slowly lowered, and the miser turned away, first raising his eyes to the casement, which had been closed during his brief altercation with the young boya. Hubert stood motionless for a moment, and then hastened after the old man, whom he overtook as he was about to enter the house. "'Master Raynham,' said he, subduing his indignation by a strong effort, "'if I, in a week's time, can show you as much money as the miller can put down, will you give Mildred to me?' "'You show as much money as Gaffa Jillingham,' said the miser, regarding him with mingled wonder and contempt. "'You? Why, who are you going to rob?' "'No more of that,' exclaimed Hubert, cheek and brow reddening again. "'Or you will make ground-bait for the fishes yet. "'Will you promise?' "'Oh, yes!' returned Roger Raynham in a jeering tone. "'When you can show as much money as Gaffa Jillingham can, you shall have her.' He entered as he spoke, and closed the door. Before he reached his accustomed seat by the barred window, however, he paused and leaned upon his stick, suddenly becoming thoughtful. "'What can his impudence mean, I wonder?' he muttered. "'As much money as the miller. Why, where is he to get it? Can he be going to rob somebody?' "'It would be a good thing now to find out his game, to make him hand over a part of the plunder, and then to hang him and marry the girl to the miller.' Every word of the last sentence was uttered very deliberately, as if each was a stone of the edifice of guilt, the erection of which he was contemplating. Hubert was walking slowly towards the cathedral, looking as thoughtful as the man from whom he had just parted. He was revolving in his mind a bold enterprise, born of desperation, and as yet shadowy and undefined. A stroll in the precincts of the venerable temple wood, he thought, enable him to give it form and substance. Two or three monks were walking in the cloisters of the monastery, but their presence seemed to give nothing of life to the gloom that pervaded the sacred precincts, so sombre and silent were they. And even the rooks cored drowsily, and the flapping of their wings was scarcely heard. There was nothing to distract his mind from the idea which was there being elaborated. He walked there for about a quarter of an hour, and then passed under the art portal of the precinct, and returned to his father's house, over the door of which a couple of arrows crossed upon a target served for a sign. In that quarter of an hour he had resolved upon an enterprise which he trusted would enable him to claim the fulfilment of the miser's promise, and to win the miser's fair daughter for his wife. On the following night, just as the deep-toned bell of the Cathedral boomed eleven, Roger Reynum alighted from a sorry-looking steed which had carried him to the distant homestead of a farmer whom he had been dunning for arrears of interest, and delivered the animal to the hustler of the Golden Cross. You have ridden him pretty hard, Master Reynum, said the man, as he noted the steaming and mud-splashed flanks and legs of the animal. Hard rejoined the miser. Ah, it was hard work to get him along, or I should have been home before this. You could have had a better beast, Master, said the hustler, as he led the horse towards this table. Ah, but the charge, returned Roger, who, as the man and horse disappeared under the arched gateway of the in-yard, glanced upward at the darkening sky, which seemed to presage a storm, and proceeded towards the bridge as fast as he was able to walk, muttering, Does the violet suppose that I am made of money? The long narrow street was silent and deserted, and from one end to the other not a light was visible. He had not gone far, however, before he discerned through the gloom two persons who were walking slowly in the same direction, but somewhat in advance of him. Hold up, Stephen, said a voice which he recognized as that of Hubert Beaulieu. You will soon be at home now. Don't leave me till I am safe home, there's a good young fellow. Rejoined the Beaulieu's companion in the thick accents of inebriation. That is the Sackreston's voice, muttered the miser. It is not in keeping with the character of an official of the cathedral to be drunk, and it is a late hour for that young blade to be out. I will see the end of this. Just keeping them in sight, he followed them until they disappeared within the Sackreston's abode, and then ensconced himself in a doorway to watch and wait. Hubert closed the door, groped his way to the chimney-nook, and deposited his helpless companion upon a settle. Then he struck a light with flint and steel, lighted a small brass lamp which stood upon an oaken table, and sat down upon the settle beside the drunken Sackreston, who blinked at the light like an owl. Are the keys safe, good fellow? The latter asked, fumbling at his girdle. Great spongebility, you know, office of Sackston. All right, Stephen, said Hubert, making the keys rattle for the Sackreston's satisfaction. Loosen, my girdle, good fellow, said the drunken man. I am as full as an egg and as tied to the drum. Hubert more than complied with the request, adroitly unbuckling the Sackreston's belt, and slipping off the ring to which the cathedral keys were attached. Let me help you to your bed, or you will be falling on the hearth, he then said. And the Sackreston staggering to his feet with a scarcely articulate, good fellow. He supported him to his chuckle-bed, upon which the drunken man seemed to fall asleep almost immediately. Hubert then extinguished the lamp, and went out with the keys in his possession. Silence and darkness reigned around the cathedral. Silence as unbroken, darkness as profound, as in the long-columbed aisles and low-arched galleries within. Hubert paused and listened as he approached the nearest door, for he had thought more than once that he heard footsteps in his rear, but the sound ceased as they had ceased before, when he stood still, and he concluded, therefore, that they were the echoes of his own. He paused and listened again as he stood within the deep-set doorway, and strained his eyes into the gloom, but all was still, and no living thing met his searching gaze. Then he inserted a key into the lock, and the heavy door swung open. He stepped into the darkness which seemed to swallow him up, and closed the door. A feeling of awe crept over him as he groped his way into the nave, and saw the white figures of bishops and abbots, barons and knights, dimly and indistinctly revealed between the gray columns, looking like the ghosts of the men whose bones rested below. But he shook it off, and advanced towards the north side of the chancel, his eyes gradually becoming used to the obscurity. He had provided himself with a candle-end and the means of procuring a light, but he feared to use them where the gleam of a light might be observed through the windows by a watchman or some belated traveller. After groping about for some time he discovered a door, and by trying one key after another he succeeded in opening it. A rush of cold air came forth, and the darkness beyond was so pitchy that for a moment he hesitated to proceed. It was the eve of St Mark, and on that night, according to a tradition to which everybody in Rochester gave implicit credence, supernatural appearances might be seen in the great tower which Bishop Gundolf had erected in the eleventh century. It is for Mildred, he murmured, nerving himself for the enterprise with that name. For her I would face all the host of hell. As he was about to step into the darkness, he heard, or thought he heard, a sound as of the heavy door swinging slowly on its hinges, and after pausing a moment to listen, he turned and retraced his steps to the door by which he had entered. It was closed as he had left it, and not a sound could be heard to indicate the presence of a lurker without or within. It must have been fancy, he murmured, as he hurried back to the door in the north wall of the chancel, which he passed without a moment's hesitation, stretching out his hands to avoid stumbling over the stone stairs which lead to the galleries and the summit of the great tower. Almost at the same moment, he became aware of a faint light from above him, flickering upon the stairs and wall, and raising his eyes not without experiencing a momentary thrill of awe, he observed a strange sight, a human hand suspended in the air, with the fingers extended upward and emitting a faint luminosity resembling that of the glowworm. As he paused for a moment, gazing at the startling spectacle with widely dilated eyes and one foot on the lowest step, the phantom hand began to ascend slowly, seeming to float before him as the thistle down is wafted on the summer air. Ascending two or three steps so hastily that he struck his shin against one of them, he summoned to his aid the courage of which no small share had descended to him through several generations, from an ancestor who had fought against the conquering host of Norman William at Swanscombe Wood, and blew at the luminous hand as he had blown not long before at the Sacreston's lamp. The light wavered but was not extinguished, and the hand continued to float slowly up the stairs. Let us now return to Roger Raynham, whom we left ensconced in a doorway watching the Sacreston's lodge. He had scarcely posted himself there when a light flickered for a moment within the lodge, and then shone steadily through the red curtains at the window showing that a lamp had been lighted. Presently the shadow of a man was thrown upon the curtain, and in a few moments the young boya issued from the lodge and walked quickly towards the cathedral. The miser left his concealment a moment afterwards and followed him, keeping close to the ivied wall lest he should be observed if Hubert caught the sound of his stealthy footsteps and looked back. So sacrilege is his game! The old man muttered, as he saw Hubert pause at a door of the cathedral. He has felt the keys and is after the sacramental plate. This conclusion was so satisfactory to his debased and sordid mind that he did not immediately determine to ascertain whether the plunder of the sacristy was really the young boya's purpose in entering the cathedral. But when he had walked a few yards in the direction of his own house, he resolved to obtain proof of the crime which he supposed Hubert to meditate, and turned towards the cathedral again. Hubert had disappeared, but he had no doubt that he was in the cathedral, and on making a stealthy attempt to open the door he found that it was unfastened and that the way was open to him. Stealing into the dark interior he closed the door, but not so silently that the sound did not reach the ears of the nocturnal trespasser who had preceded him. He heard the footsteps of Hubert returning and concealed himself behind a column until he had retraced his steps towards the chancel. Then he followed in the young man's track with the stealthy tread of a night-prowling animal of the feline kind. On reaching the door through which Hubert had disappeared and finding it open, he paused in wonder, and his thoughts took a new direction. This must be the door leading to Gundalf's tower, he said to himself. And this, now I think of it, is St Mark's Eve when the phantom hand is seen. They say there is a great treasure concealed somewhere in the tower. Can this fellow have discovered it, or has his love-madness goaded him on to seek for it? For some moments he hesitated to proceed farther, being held back by the fear of phantoms and goblins as strongly as he was urged forward by the hope of profiting by Hubert's discovery of the hidden treasure. Curiosity and avarice at length prevailed over fear, and he began to ascend the stairs. Groping his way upward as noiselessly as he could, he presently heard Hubert's echoing footsteps before him, and when he had ascended to a height which he guessed to be level with the galleries, he discerned a flickering light which a dark figure was eagerly pursuing. The apparition awed him for the moment, though he could not see distinctly what it was. But reflecting that there could be no danger which would not first be encountered by Hubert, he continued to ascend. Up the winding stairs, now narrower and more steep, the phantom hand floated like the goblin fire of swampy woods, or the corpse candle of Welsh church-yards, flickering in the draught which came down the stairs, and in the strong expirations from the lips of the young boya, but never becoming extinguished. So absorbed was Hubert in the pursuit which became more exciting as the harsh cries and flapping wings of startled rooks and doors warned him that he was near the summit of the tower, that he did not hear the miser's footsteps following his own. His last effort to extinguish the phosphorescent light that encircled and wavered about the phantom hand was made when his right foot was on the topmost stair, and the mysterious appearance seemed to be about to mount into the air. A despairing cry burst from his lips as he witnessed its failure, and at the same instant lightning flashed from the black cloud that hung over the cathedral, and as it momentarily illumined battlement and stair he heard what seemed the echo of his cry from the stairs below, followed by the sound of a heavy body falling against the wall. The flash was succeeded by pitchy darkness and the rumbling of the thunder along the black concave above. The phantom hand had disappeared. Hubert stood motionless for some moments, and then, imagining that its disappearance might be a sign that the flagstones on the summit of the tower concealed the hidden treasure, he struck a light, lighted his candle, and with feelings alternating between hope and despair examined the stones around him. Not a trace of any removal could he find, and he was unprovided with tools for a further prosecution of the search. He had not abandoned it, however, when he was startled by a groan from the stairs below. Starting to his feet, with cold perspiration distilling from every pore, he held his light above the stairs, listening intently for a repetition of the sound that had startled him. Some dark object was lying upon the stairs below, at a point where they wound round their supporting column. Can I have been followed? he asked himself, as he looked down, lowering the light and holding it forward. Then he descended, and found upon the stairs an old man whose course features he recognized as those of Roger Raynham. The face of the miser was deathly pale, blood was trickling from a ghastly wound upon the head, and no sign of life could be detected. The grovelling spirit had departed with the groan which had attracted Hubert's attention to him. The conviction that the old man was beyond mortal aid was succeeded in Hubert's mind by the serious and perplexing question, how was he to act? Should he call up the head-burrow and tell him that there was a man lying dead in the cathedral? Or should he leave the corpse where it was, and say nothing about the matter? If he adopted the first course, he would be called upon to account for his own presence in the cathedral, and perhaps be accused of having murdered the old man. If there had been any life left in Roger Raynham, humanity would have prompted that course, and Hubert would not in that case have been the man to listen to the suggestions of selfishness, but he saw no reason why he should imperil his own life to enable Roger's corpse to be removed before its diffant. So he descended into the chancel, left the door at the foot of the tower open with the key in the lock, and quitted the cathedral, closing the outer door, but leaving it unlocked. Great was the excitement in Rochester next morning when the news spread through the city that the keys of the cathedral had been stolen, and the corpse of Roger Raynham with the skull fractured found on the stairs of Gundalf's tower. As all the ecclesiastical plate was found safe in the sacristy, and the miser was shown by the evidence of the hostler at the Golden Cross to have been abroad at a very late hour, and to have been going towards the cathedral at the same time that the sacristan was staggering homeward from the bull's head, it was surmised that the deceased had robbed the drunken man of the keys, entered the cathedral with the intent of searching for the traditionally hidden treasure, and fallen down the stairs in Gundalf's tower, a fractured skull being the result. Of course, the pretty Mildred did not become the wife of Gaffa Jillingham. She was sole heiress of all the miser's possessions, and she conferred them with her hand upon Hubert Boya, to whom all her heart had long been given. The bells of St Margaret's never rung a merry appeal than on the day they were married, and their future lives passed so happily that Hubert often remarked that he possessed a greater treasure in his wife than he could possibly have discovered in Gundalf's tower. In Kent with Charles Dickens by Thomas Frost Chapter 6 Where is Dingley Dell? This question was asked by the curate as the pilgrims stepped into the street at six o'clock on the following morning and turned towards Chatham Hill. Somewhere in this neighbourhood said I, not having a very clear recollection of the data given by Dickens for the discovery of that interesting locality. On, or probably off, one of the by-roads between this and the high road from Canterbury to Maidstone, I fancy. Two miles from Muggleton observed the curate with a smile. Which is not to be found on the map or in any gazetteer, I rejoined. It belongs to the same category of towns as Eaton's will. Dickens may have had towns in his mind which he disguised under those names, observed our white cravatid companion. Possibly, said I, but he has not given us the means of identifying it, which he so amply provided in the case of Cloisterham. This curious topographical problem could not be solved then, however, as neither of us had preserved in the cells of memory the precise data of the Pickwickian's eventful journey to Dingley-Dell and their subsequent visit to Muggleton. So we reserved it for future study when such light could be thrown upon it as might be afforded by the novelist's amusing record of the journey, aided by a good map of Kent. The result of the investigation may be given at once, however, while the pilgrims are tramping over Chatham Hill and along the highway beyond, with the green pastures bordering the estuary of the Medway on their left, and the distant woods of Boxley and Moorling on their right. Dingley-Dell, according to the information given to the Pickwickians by the waiter at the bull inn, must be looked for on the circumference of a circle drawn on a map of Kent at the distance of fifteen miles from Rochester. On the main road from that city to Canterbury that distance is reached at Judds Hill, about a mile west of the finger post at the road leading to Favisham. But Dingley-Dell was on a crossroad, and was reached for a Muggleton, two miles distant, through shady lanes and sequestered footpaths. Favisham is the only town within two miles of the curve drawn from Judds Hill to Otterdon, Staplehurst, and Paddock Wood, and it must be obvious that the Pickwickians would not have travelled from Rochester to Dingley-Dell by byways if the place had been only two miles from Favisham, which is only one mile from the high road. If we extend the radius to the country west of the Medway it will pass through Tumbridge and Severnoke's. But we are precluded from that extension of the area to be examined by the consideration that the Pickwickians did not cross the Medway. They appear to have turned off the high road as soon as they were out of Rochester, and the Medway can have been crossed only at Alesford, a place which excursions to Bluebell Hill and Kitts Cotyhouse had made Dickens acquainted with, but which he cannot have intended the reader to suppose was passed through by the Pickwickians on their way to Manifam. The distance from Rochester to Alesford is six miles, and the bridge over the Medway is a stone structure, while the only bridge mentioned in the narrative of the journey is the wooden bridge near which the carriage broke down and which must have been less than four miles from Rochester. It was an hour's walk from that spot to the little roadside public house with two elm trees, a horse trough, and a signpost in front, at which Mr Pickwick was informed that the distance thenced to Dingley-Del was more than seven miles. Dingley-Del, if it is to be found at all, must be sought, therefore, east of the Medway, between the two lines of Railway, and west of a curved line drawn from Judds Hill to Paddock Wood through Otterdon and Staplehurst. And in that portion of Kent, though there may be many spots, the seclusion and picturesqueness of which might suggest such a name as Dingley-Del, there is no town to correspond to Muggleton. All the localities mentioned by Dickens in his narrative of the Pickwickians' journey and their sojourns at Manifam must be regarded, therefore, as being equally with Mr Wardle and the fat boy, the creations of his fancy. The village of Rainham, which we reached about eight o'clock, struggles along both sides of the high-road, with the church on the right, the lofty tower of which makes it a conspicuous object in the rural scene. We had, by this time, acquired by exercise a formidable appetite, and a beef-steak, procured from a little butcher's shop on the right-hand side of the village street, and cooked very fairly at a decent little inn a few doors farther on, with a quart of our host's excellent ale provided us with a substantial old-fashioned breakfast. Invigorated by our repast, we started again, without any more definite arrangement for the day's journey, than the understanding that we should dine whenever and wherever our stomachs reminded us that nature required father recruitment, and that we were to sleep that night in Dover. It was one of those fine days which make September so enjoyable a season for the lover of the country, and we strode gaily onward, inhaling the pure air, with as keen a zest as we had disposed of the beef-steak and our host's ale, snuffing the fragrance borne upon the light breeze from hop gardens and apple orchards, and discussing the merits of novels in general and of the Dickensian contributions to that department of literature in particular, as we trudged steadily onward, looking over a green and sweet-smelling country on either hand. Through Newington and Bobbing, and on to Sittingbourne, through Bapchild and Green Street, over Judd's Hill, and through Osbringen Preston, we tramped until the sun, which had been shining brilliantly all the morning, had passed the meridian, and we were beginning to think of dinner. Our way lay through a succession of scenes of rural beauty unexcelled in any part of England. Again and again we passed through a village with gardens before the cottages, and oast houses rising in the rear of the farm yards, for every kentish farmer who has a field sloping to the south grows hops, and the grey tower of the parish church crowning a hill, which was often a mile off the road. Then came hop gardens, with the pendant clusters of hops hanging in rich profusion from the long lines of poles, and orchards where the red-street apples gleamed amidst the foliage, hops and apples combining to load the air with a delicate fragrance. Then a roadside inn, with farmers' wagons and carriers' tilted carts before it, and more orchards and hop gardens, or perhaps a wood where the hazelnuts and the ripe brambleberries hung in tempting clusters, and the orange-red hips glowed upon the trailing briars. A kentish hop garden in the month of September is one of the prettiest scenes to be witnessed in any part of the country. Above a hawthorn hedge surmounting a mossy bank, fringed with the feathery fern, rise the tall poles, each encircled with a luxuriant growth of large dark green leaves and trailing bunches of pale green flowers, each petal of which is charged at its base with golden dust. Up the long arcades of wavering greenery comes the murmur of voices, those of women and children predominating. Presently an open gate is reached, and the wayfarer, looking in the direction whence the sounds come, sees a portion of the ground cleared and a double line of pickers, chiefly women and children, along the margins of the standing poles, still festooned with the green leaves and trailing clusters of hops. If the pickers are not working at too great a distance from the road, the wayfarer will observe that they stand in two lines facing each other, and having between them what are called in the technology of the hop garden bins, square receptacles for the picked hops, consisting of wooden uprights and crossbars upon which coarse canvas, called bin cloth, is stretched to form the sides and bottom. Men are at work near them, cutting the hop binds close to the ground with a large curved knife, pulling up the poles and carrying them, with the binds clinging about them, to the bins, which they are laid across at a convenient angle. When the hops have all been picked off and dropped into the bin, the pole is thrown upon the cleared ground, where other poles lie by dozens amidst green heaps of broken trailers of the bind, and another is quickly brought by a pole-puller. Presently a man comes along carrying a bushel basket, followed by another with a sack, and the farmer with a book in his hand. As they pause at each bin, the measurer lifts the hops, and drops them lightly into the basket, which he barely fills before emptying the contents into the sack. As he calls out the number of bushels, the farmer enters them in the book, opposite the name of the family or companionship working at that bin, and then the three men pass on to the next. At one o'clock the measurer calls out, dinnertime, three-quarters of an hour, and then the pickers who live in the village hurry to their homes, if the distance is not too great, and those who have come from London or Maidstone sit down in the shade of the growing hops, where there is often a shabby perambulator or two, and perhaps a cradle or a clothes-basket with a baby in it, and open their provision baskets. Hop-picking in the southeastern counties of England has one point of resemblance to cotton picking in the southern states of the American Union, namely that it requires to be begun and completed within a very limited period of time or the crop will be spoiled. For this reason the local supply of labour in the hop-growing districts is never equal to the demand, and has to be largely supplemented by the employment of poor families whom the prospect of an unwonted rate of earnings tempts from their homes in the towns, and the vagrants who find the occupation of pleasant variation from mendicancy and a tent or a barn are lodging more to their taste than the casual ward of a work-house or even a tramp's lodging-house. Hence it was that we pass so many groups whose appearance indicated that they were bound to the hop gardens, in their own phraseology, go in a hopping, as plainly as that of the typical Grazier did to the sharp cab-man, Vidae Punch, that he was going to the cattle-show. Now it was a middle-aged man and woman, the former carrying a bundle at his back, and the latter a child in her arms, while each held an older child by the hand, the whole only a day or two out from Westminster or Whitechapel. Then a young man, with close cropped hair, the peak of a greasy cap over his right ear, a very foul and very short pipe between his lips, and a shawl twisted loosely about his throat, a young woman, bold-looking and blousy, tramping by his side and carrying a bundle. Here we passed a pale, forlorn-looking woman trailing two young children after her. There a group of three sun-burned vagabonds, ragged and dirty, stretched upon the grass by the roadside, smoking their dirty pipes. We had descended the father's slope of Judd's Hill, and were resting upon a felled tree which conveniently lay upon the shady side of the road, when they turned the corner of a lane and came towards us, an athletic, sun-browned man, wearing a hard-worn velveteen jacket and fustian trousers, and seeming to have the scent of the hops in his nose, and yet showing neither the foot-sore limp of the town labourer or costamunger nor the slouch of the habitual tramp. He had about him more of the free, bold air of the gypsy, a suspicion of relationship to which race might have been suggested by his dark complexion. Of either of you gentlemen got a match about you, he asked as he came up, and produced a short smoke-blackened pipe from his pocket. Neither of us was smoking, but I had about me a box of lights which I placed at his service. He thanked me, lighted his pipe, returned the box with another thanks, and stood a few moments to assure himself that his pipe was well-lighted. You gentlemen seem to have been doing a good tramp, he then remarked, glancing as he spoke at our dusty boots. Did you see much hot picking going on as you come along? Picking had begun in some places, I rejoined. Well, it is fine weather for it, said he, sitting down upon the bank in our rear, which was clothed with the sweet scented ground ivy. Warm for September, said the most clerical looking of our party, the one who was not a clergyman, removing his hat and wiping the profuse perspiration from his broad glowing forehead. I have been worried as much warmer in September than it is here, observed the stranger. Australia suggested our friend. Bermuda, said the stranger. That is about the latitude of Madeira and Algeria, observed our friend, and as the sugarcane flourishes in the one and the date palm in the other, they must be tolerably hot. Intolerably sometimes Bermuda is, said the man in the hedge. I had five years of it and I know what it is. But except for the heat which answer bad when you get used to it, I was better off there than I ever was before, or have ever been since. I didn't work as hard as I have often had to do in this country, and I lived better, and never had to look for my living. Happy state of existence! murmured the curate with a smile. But what took you to Bermuda? Well, I got a free passage out and had everything provided for me by government, replied the stranger. To tell you the truth, I got into trouble. The first time in my life, gentlemen, and the last, least ways as I looks at it, for one thing rose out of another, and the beginning of it was a hair. A very common beginning of trouble in these parts, I am afraid, said the clerical-looking gentleman, who was not a clergyman. Wait a bit, said the gypsy-looking wayfarer. As I am going to rest a bit here, and I like to be sociable, I will tell you the story. It was like this, gentlemen. He took the pipe from his mouth, and we shifted our seats upon the tree so as to face him and listen to the convict's story. It is a good many years ago now, as you may suppose, for transportation beyond the seas has long been done away with. In them days, if a man got a sentence that wasn't long enough to make it worth sending him to the penal settlements in Australia, he was sent to Bermuda, where he had to work upon the roads and the harbour, and any kind of work the government had for him to do. Well, I was standing one day at the gate of my father's cottage, when I heard the yelping of hounds in full cry, and before I could move to see where they were, a hair came through the hedge and made for the other side of the road. I happened to have a stick in my hand, and as soon as I see the hair, without a moment's thought about it, I sent the stick flying through the air just above the ground and knocked him right over. Hadn't I as much right to a wild animal on the highway as any other man? I thought so anyhow, and I picked up the dead hair and carried it indoors. Presently I heard the hounds coming nearer, and in another minute they come bustling into the road, some over the hedge, some through it, and running about in all directions, yelping and snuffing the ground. Oh, George, says my mother, beginning to be frightened, throw the hair out and let them think it has been killed by the hounds. Why, it will make us a dinner, says I, a couple of dinners, and who has a better right to the game than the man who kills it? I'd shut the door to keep the dogs out, but presently I heard other voices than theirs, and the door was opened hastily by a young swell in a scarlet coat and white cords. I knew him, and had cause for remembering him, for he gave me a cup with his wick once, when I was a youngster, for not opening a gate quick enough to please him. Where's the hair, says he, for he saw plainly that the hounds were at fault, and some of them was yelping at the door and scratching at it. What hair, says I, standing so as to prevent his seeing it? You know what hair well enough, he shouted in a furious rage, and raising his whip as if he was going to lay it about me. He thought better of that when he saw how I was looking at him, but he pushed past me and got into the room before I could prevent him. You get out, says I, and in another minute he was on his back in the road. You shall smart for this, he cried, shaking his fist at me, as he gathered himself up from the dust. Wasn't you a trespassing? says I. Don't you shove yourself into other people's houses without being invited? Then I banged the door in his face, and I heard some loud talk and a good deal of swearing going on in the road. And then they all went off hounds and all. Presently comes a policeman with a summons. What is this for? says I. Game case, says he, illegal possession of game. So I had to go before the magistrates to answer the charge, and the young fellow in the scarlet coat swore that he saw the hair in the cottage. Well you swear that the hair belonged to you, I asked him. He didn't answer, but looked at the chairman, and the chairman asked me where I got the hair. I told him I knocked it over on the road with a stick. Six months, says he, and then I was walked off to a cell and sent away to Maidstone jail. I didn't tell you that my mother was a widow at that time, did I? She had bad health too, and couldn't do much. And when I came out I found somebody else living in the cottage, and was told she was in the union house. That's the work of that fellow who got me the six months, says I, clenching my hands and feeling I should like to have him before me. Then I went to the farmer I used to work for, and found him at his gate. He received me kindly enough, but it was a slack time for farm work, and he had as many hands as he could find employment for. I'm sorry for you, George, says he, but I shouldn't be advising of you for the best if I said anything to encourage you to stay here, where every farmer is afraid of offending the gentry in the matter of the game. Take my advice, lad, and get right away from here. I thought his advice was good, unless I should come across the young squire and be tempted to give him a thrashing. I made my mind up to start at once, but there was one that I wanted to see first, and I turned down the lane where she lived. But I hadn't gone far when I met an old man who was a neighbour of her mother's. Don't go any further, lad. says he, with a very sorrowful look upon him. I know where you be are going, and it's no good, George. What do you mean, says I? George, he answered, I be sorry for you, lad, but you had better hear of it here than go down yonder and see it. It is plain enough to be seen, and all the village be are talking about it. And then he told me how the girl had been seen about the lanes and fields with the young squire soon after I was sent away, and how shame and disgrace had been brought upon her, and when I left him all my blood seemed boiling up into my head. I walked away from the village very fast, determined never to return to it. But unfortunately, as I was making a shortcut through a wood, I saw, coming towards me, the man upon whose head I was invoking curses as with clenched hands and set teeth I tramped along the narrow path. For a moment I felt a savage joy at the opportunity for revenge that seemed to be thrown in my way, and I stood still, knowing that he could not pass me on the path unless I chose to let him. The next moment I was struggling hard against the temptation, and to avoid it I dashed into the wood. Whether he knew me I was never able to say, he said afterwards that he did not, and that may have been the truth. The path was a public one, but the wood was part of the squire's estate, and there was a board at each end of the path warning those who used it not to trespass. Whether he knew me or not, he dashed into the wood after me, and in a few minutes we were face to face, for when I heard him crashing through the bracken and the brambles, I turned like a stag when the hounds are close upon him. So it is you jailbird, says he, so he knew me then if he didn't before. What are you doing in my preserves? You were after no good, I'll be bound. What have you been after scoundrel? I shouted at him, and then I sprang at him, clutched him by the throat, and pitched him into the bushes. As he scrambled to his feet, with his face paler than before, and terrified and bleeding, I dealt him a blow with my clenched fist, which knocked him down as if he had been shot. I thought I had killed him, so still he laid amidst the bracken, and so heavily groaned. I stood there, gazing down upon him for a few moments, and then I returned to the path, leaving him where he fell, and walked all night, determined to get out of the county, and as far away as I could. But I didn't get far. Next day, as I was eating some bread and cheese in a little public house, a constable stepped in, clapped the handcuffs on me, and marched me off to the station house. I thought I saw the black scaffold and old call craft waiting, but by the mercy of God it was not to be so bad for me as that. The man I thought I had killed had only been knocked senseless, but that was thought enough to send me for trial at the Assizes, and the judge thought it enough to make it his duty to sentence me to seven years' transportation. That's how I come to know Bermuda, and it was a better thing for me, mind you, than if I had had a year in Maidstone jail, for I worked in the open air in a beautiful climate, and was never so well off in my life as I was while I was there. He rose when he had finished his story, drew a long whiff from his pipe, which he had kept alight by a draw at intervals, and, wishing us good day, strode away in the direction of sitting-born. CHAPTER VII About an hour after noon we reached the village of Borton, where the servant of Chaucer's rich cannon, the alchemist who could have paved with gold all the road to Canterbury town, overtook the pilgrims bound to the shrine of Thomas Beckett. We, too, had our faces Canterbury wood, and a remark upon the association of the locality with the pilgrimage described by the medieval poet, with so much quaintness and humour, led to many comparisons and contrasts, more or less felicitous, as we strolled through the village, looking for what might seem to be the most eligible hostelry. Having made our selection, we sat down in the sanded parlour, which the curate said reminded him by its furniture and decorations of the leather bottle at Cobham, and awaited the serving of dinner with appetites sharpened by our long walk and the pure air. There are certain features of the public rooms of village-ins in the south of England, which are common to most of them. The same hard chairs, the same stuffed birds in the same square cases, the same varnished engravings in the same black frames, may be found in a very large proportion of the guest parlours of hostelries of this class. In how many, as I asked the curate, should we not find that old print of the stopper stopped, representing a rustic going through the woods on the eve of a fox-hunt, to close the apertures by which Reynard might run to earth, and finding himself to his dismay confronted with the evil one. Our hostess was not long in producing a juicy and well-cooked steak, a dish of the mealiest potatoes, and a quart of bright, amber-hued ale. Praise to the bonny faces of Kent! Just such a dinner I once had served at a moment's notice at a little hostelery and sandwich. Beef steaks for breakfast at Reynard, beef steaks for dinner at Boughton. At a little town in the southwestern corner of Dorseture, I was once unable to procure a steak because it was not market day, and at the best in, in a neighbouring village, I could obtain nothing but bread and cheese, the latter commestible as white and almost as hard as chalk, being presumably made of skimmed milk, water contrast, and how loudly it proclaims the prosperity of Kent. Beautiful weather, gentlemen, said our host, bringing us in some tobacco and a further supply of the amber-hued ale. Fine weather for the hops responded my clerical-looking non-clerical friend. Yes, sir! responded Boniface, who was a very jolly-looking fellow, and, if it lasts, there will be a splendid crop this year. Such weather at this season ought to make glad the hearts of the farmers, observed my companion. It did ought to, rejoined our host, but, somehow or other, the farmers never do seem satisfied, much less thankful, whatever the weather is, and however the crops are, hop growers especially. If the crop is light and prices are high as they are apt to be, they grumble because they have so few to sell. If the crop is heavy, they grumble because prices are low. You think that the farmers are a discontented section of the community? said I, anxious to gather the views of a man living in the midst of an agricultural district. The farmers, sir, returned Boniface, striking a large hand sharply on the beer-stained table, are the most discontented men on the face of the earth, always a grumbling. If they see a cloud, they shape their heads at it and prophesy a bad harvest. If the sun shines, they declare the crops are being scorched up. And who ought to be better off than the Kentish farmer? The hops pay the rent and the cows keep the pot boiling. They pay only half as much tax on their incomes as tradesmen do, and they are allowed a horse and a sheep-dog tax-free while I can't keep a horse or a dog without paying taxes on them. Yet they grumbles. Rents is too high, taxes is too high, wages is too high. Yet they pay only the market value of land and labour, the same as tradesmen, who never get any abatement of rent, however bad trade is, and they are more likely taxed than any other class in the state. Rents and wages are higher in Kent than in many parts of England, I observed, but I suppose they would not be so if the average value of the produce was not much higher. They ought to be higher, sir," responded our host, then they would have to farm better and the country would gain by it, and if they weren't able to go galloping about the country in the hunting season in scarlet coats and white cores, why should they expect to do it? If farming is such a bad game as they try to make us believe, why do they do it, and how can they do it? A very pertinent question, I observed. Our host was now called away, and we have enlightened our pipes, that is, the curate and myself did, our friend not favouring the consumption of the Nicotian weed, stepped upon the dusty road once more, and faced the pleasant rise of Broughton Hill. Before us stretched the extensive woods formerly forming Blean Forest, with the white road winding between them, Herne Hill rising on our left, and the grey tar of a village church peeping out of them on the right. In those woods, said I, as we walked gently up the hill, on the left of the road, was quenched in blood one of the most remarkable impostures of modern times, for it was there that a volley from the muskets of a military detachment from Canterbury terminated the career of John Nicolle Tom. That was before my time, observed the curate, pretended to be an incarnation of the Saviour, didn't he? That was towards the clothes of his career, I replied. The affray created a great sensation at the time, when gross ignorance prevailed among the labouring classes in the rural districts, and the changes then, lately made in the laws for the relief of the poor, had created profound discontent among them. An ignorant mob led by a madman, said my other companion with a sigh. Let us hear what this old fellow has to say about it, said the curate, lowering his voice, as we overtook a bent, grey-headed, sun-browned man who was walking slowly in the same direction as ourselves. I will be bound, he had a finger in the pie. Was it not here that the riots were some years ago? I inquired of the old man. You mean when the men were killed in the wood yonder? He rejoined after a momentary hesitation, when the red coats were sent for from Canterbury, and Lieutenant Bennet was shot by Sir William Courtney. Yes. Yonder's the wood-weather fighting was there on the left hand. If you go through the gate on the top of the hill, Courtney's gate it has been called ever since, you may find the very spot with Courtney's name, and the names of the men who were shot down with him, cut in the bark of the trees. I suppose you knew some of them, the curate observed. Them has belonged to this place, I did, but they come from all the villages round about. It was a terrible sight, sir, and I hope as I may never see such a sight again. What did you think you were going to do? the curate asked. Well, sir, said the old man, hesitating a little before he replied. We was poor and ignorant, and we thought we couldn't be worse off, come what might. And Sir William, he told us there should be an end of it all, and all wrongs be righted, and no harm come to any of us if we stood by him. A few more questions elicited from him, a narrative of the exciting incidents which preceded the fatal affray in Boston and Wood, which the reader will understand the better for first learning something of Tom's life and previous connection with the neighbourhood. Except that he was a native of Churro, very little is known of the former until his first appearance at Canterbury in 1832, when he courted himself at the Rose Inn on the parade, calling himself Sir William Courtney, and assuming the style and title of King of Jerusalem and Knight of St John. He was a man of singularly striking appearance, closely resembling the ideal portrait of Jesus of Nazareth as depicted by the old masters, and affecting in his costume the flowing robes of eastern countries. Nothing was known about his antecedents, and no information concerning them was ever volunteered by himself, but by his manners and language he impressed those with whom he came in contact with the idea that he was an intelligent and well-informed foreigner possessing almost unlimited wealth. The first general election under the Reform Act was then impending, and just as the sitting members were congratulating themselves on the prospect of an uncontested and inexpensive return, the Oriental-looking stranger at the Rose announced himself as a candidate. In his printed addresses to the constituency he declared himself an advocate of the abolition of tides, the repeal of the excise duty on malt, and other changes likely to find favour with a rural community. And in one of them he indicated a claim to the noble mansion and estate of Hale's Place, belonging to a family of that name, and since made famous by its introduction into the evidence in the extraordinary Titchbourne trial. His candidature was, as might have been expected, a failure, but it elevated him into a certain degree of local importance, which was probably all that he anticipated from it. His next public appearance tended, however, less to his advantage. He gave evidence at Maidstone against some men who were charged with smuggling, and his statements being proved to be unfounded, he was prosecuted for perjury, and committed, on the ground of insanity, to the County Lunatic Asylum at Barmingheath near Maidstone. His subsequent actions tended strongly to support the view then taken of the state of his mind, but it is difficult, in the analysis of such a character, to determine how much is due to mental aberration, and how much to inordinate self-approbation and wild ambition. However insane he may have been, he had craft enough to conceal the manifestations of a diseased intellect, and in a few years he obtained his release and returned to Canterbury, where he again established himself at the Rose. The amendment of the laws relating to the relief of the poor was at that time exciting the minds of the labouring classes throughout the country, especially in the rural districts, and Tom incited the poor people of the neighbourhood against it by long and violent harangues, delivered sometimes from the balcony of the Rose, and sometimes on the wastes of Blem. His seditious and inflammatory discourses gradually assumed a religious tinge, which became more blasphemous in proportion to the credulity of the persons whom he addressed, thus affording a further proof of the craftiness of his character. The climax came in a declaration that he was the saviour, in corroboration of which he displayed cicatrices on his hands, which he alleged were those of the wounds inflicted by the nails which had secured them to the cross. He should be with them for a time, he told his ignorant and credulous listeners, and then should be taken up to heaven in a cloud of glory. You surely did not believe those wild ravings, I said to the old man who trudged up the hill with us, and who prefaced his narrative with a brief account of what he had seen and heard at the first gathering of Tom's deluded followers which he attended. Well, sir, you see, we was all poor, ignorant folk, and didn't know what to believe and what not to believe. There were many that doubted and scoffed at first that come to be the strongest believers in him, and the women went quite wild about him, and they egged on the men, and then he talked us all into such a state of mind that we went as wild as the women, and would have gone through fire and water if he went before us. Every time I went to them meetings I found more men met together, till at last I believe every farming man in the village and a good many more of all sorts went to hear him. Well, the end of it was, he rode into Boughton one morning, mounted on a finer horse as ever I see, and dressed like you see Jesus Christ in the pictures, but carrying a sword and pistols. Men and women, boys and girls all ran out to welcome him. The men he told to arm themselves and follow him, the rest were to stay at home. Then he rode down the lane that we have just passed, about a hundred of us following him, some with guns, and some with hay-forks, sickles, or anything that would serve for a deadly weapon, and he led us through the lanes to our farmhouse at Fairbrook, a little place yonder below Herne Hill. There he set up a blue and white flag with a lion on it, a rearing up-like, and he made a speech telling us that neither steel nor lead could harm him, and that if we had faith in him and followed wherever he led us we should overcome all opposition, and not a hair of our heads should be hurt. It seemed true, for he fired a pistol at his own head, and then at the heads of two or three more and nobody was harmed. When we saw that we believed on him more than ever, and we swore to follow wherever he led. Then we marched off to Goodenstone, a village this side of Favisham, and then round to Herne Hill again, where bread and cheese and ale were served out to us at a farmhouse. When we had rested a bit we went to Dargate Common, just beyond the hill, where we all went down on our knees, while Sir William offered prayer for half an hour, as well as any minister as ever went into a pulpit. Then we went to a farm in the woods where we had more bread and cheese and ale, and slept in the barns. About three o'clock next morning, while the sky was yet grey, we were moving again, tramping over Herne Hill, and startling the blackbirds and thrushes from their sleep, and scaring the rabbits that were cropping the herbage on the skirts of the wood. Tramp, tramp, tramp, all along the byway, setting every place we passed through in a commotion, wondering where we were going and what we were going to do. We got into Sittingbourne about six o'clock, and there we had breakfast, Courtney paying for all. And then, when we had rested, we started again, turning off the high road, and marching through Newnham, Eastling, Throwley, Seldwich and Selling, spreading the excitement and commotion wherever we went, and halting in every village for Sir William to make a speech and draw the men on to follow him. At last we got back to Borton, wondering what it was all to end in, but resolute to do whatever we were set on to. There was some talk of marching through the woods to Hale's place, and taking possession of it, but nothing was done next day, which was Sunday. And on Monday morning the first blood was shed, and that was the beginning of the end. We were all in a field wondering what the next move was to be when one of the farmers came with three constables, after a man who, as most of us had done, had left his work and broken his contract of service. As soon as Courtney saw these men coming towards us, he whipped out one of his pistols and fired. One of the constables fell dead, and the others and the farmer ran for their lives, spreading terror and excitement all through the village. Courtney drew his sword and hacked the body of the dead constable, which two of the men then lifted, gashed and bleeding, and threw into a ditch. Waving his bloody sword he told us to follow him, and we all marched off into the heart of the wood, where he made a speech that worked us all up into a fever of excitement. Then we all went down on our knees, and Courtney offered a prayer, and a hymn was sung, all of us believing that there would soon be some fighting, and we should carry all before us, and do I don't know what. By and by we heard the tramping of feet along the lane by Barclay Lodge, Yonder, and we drew into the thickest part of the wood those who had guns being posted in front. The constabulary sergeant had ridden into Canterbury after the man had been shot, and the magistrates had called upon the military for help, and were coming against us with every soldier in the city. Presently we heard them pushing through the bushes and the tall bracken, and then we saw their bayonets glittering in the sunshine, where it gleamed here and there through the branches of the oaks. Courtney made a sudden movement forward, and we saw a flash, and then the report of his pistol rang through the wood, and the startled birds flew in all directions, twittering and screaming. The next moment there was another flash, and a sharp rattling in our front, and I saw Courtney fall, and several poor fellows sinking on their knees amongst the bracken, or staggering against the trees. A wild cry was raised by the men, and those who had guns fired at the soldiers, and then there was a rush, and we saw the gleam of steel, and in a moment we were flying in all directions through the wood. Three soldiers had been shot, two of them mortally wounded, besides Lieutenant Bennett killed by Courtney, and Courtney and sixteen of his men were left upon the ground, nine of them dead or mortally wounded, besides Courtney himself. Here the old man's story ended. The coroner's jury returned a verdict of justifiable homicide in the case of Tom and the nine labours whose blood had stained the spring flowers and bright green moss of Bosondon wood, and one of willful murder against the madmen and eighteen of his deluded followers in the case of Lieutenant Bennett and the two soldiers. The captured rioters were subsequently tried at Maidstone, when three of them were sentenced to be transported, two for life, and the third for fourteen years, and most of the others to various terms of imprisonment. Tom was buried at Herne Hill, a few days after the affray, and so great were the alarm and excitement that still prevailed throughout the district, that the burial service was hurriedly performed, and every allusion to the doctrine of the resurrection was omitted from it. Was this a mission sanctioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, I wonder? Lest it should seem to countenance the belief of the Tomites in the expected resurrection of their leader. But though one woman expressed a firm belief that he was not dead, even when she was shown his corpse in a coffin, and another acknowledged that she had carried a vessel of water half a mile in order to pour some of the fluid between his lips in the event of his being slain, because he had told her that he would be resuscitated by that means, the delusion seems to have quietly died out soon after the fatal termination of his career. Many mementos of this melancholy affair may, however, still be found in the villages and hamlets in which the delusion existed. Tom's long black hair and beard, which were cut off by the surgeons, fell into the hands of one of his disciples, by whom they were treasured with the deepest reverence. It is said that fancy prices were given for locks of his hair not only by his followers, but even by respectable inhabitants of Canterbury and its vicinity, who were actuated by a morbid desire for the acquisition of such relics. Even the corpse of the blasphemous imposter would have been disinterred if a strict watch had not been kept on the grave for months after the interment. The names and initials of Tom and several of the deluded men who fell with him may still be seen rudely cut with clasped knives on the trees in Bosondon wood. The tree against which Tom fell was stripped of all its bark by the crowds whom the tragedy attracted to the spot, and his autograph was eagerly sought after and bought with gold. Nor was this morbid curiosity confined to believers in the imposter, or to the poor and ignorant. For many ladies and gentlemen of good social position visited Borton, some travelling long distances, for the purpose of seeing the spot where he fell, obtaining some memento of him, and stroking his horse. We had reached the summit of Borton Hill while the old man was telling his story, and now paused to look over the surrounding country. Large tracts of woodland stretched away on either hand, the bright greenery fading into blue in the distance, with a light streak on the northern horizon which we knew to be the sea, and a depression in the opposite direction marking the valley of the star. From a point a little beyond the gate leading into Bosondon wood, and which is called Courtney's Gate, we had a very distinct view of Canterbury Cathedral, and the towers of three or four village churches rose above the woods on the right and the left. Bosondon wood, which abounds in picturesque glades and hollows, with many chestnut trees mingling with the oaks of which it chiefly consists, is a portion of the wild tract called Blean Forest, or the Blean, which formerly stretched from Favisham to Canterbury, and thence to Herne Bay, and of which many extensive woods still exist. There the Badger, which is now seldom seen either in Kent or Surrey, still has its haunts, and there too may sometimes be seen the rare yellow-throated variety of the Martin, commonly called the Pine Martin, which resembles the weasel in form, but is larger than that fierce little carnivore, and has a bushy tail like that of the squirrel. These extensive woods seem indeed to abound with attractions, not only for the naturalist, but also for lovers of the picturesque, and for ramblers who wish for shade and seclusion far from the madding crowd of the seaside resort and the shriek of the railway whistle. The northerly footpath from Boughton Hill is continued by a green lane to Lamber's Wood, and thence to Whitstable, and is crossed on the south side of the latter wood by another lane, leading from Graveney to Blean, and passing over Honey Hill and Blean Common. By bearing to the right, and following the course of the stream which rises in Bosondon Wood, and flows into Herne Bay, a little to the eastward of Whitstable, the latter lane may be struck, and followed to the road which connects Canterbury with Whitstable, from which point there is a footpath which, leaving Blean Church to the right, passes through Zondon Wood, and thence to Herne Bay. It will be needful, however, to bear in mind that woods, like commons, do not always bear the same name on all parts of their borders, and that Bosondon Wood is sometimes called Blean Wood, and the eastern portion bordering on Harveldown, Short Wood, while the western portion of Thawndon Wood bears the name of Blean Lower Wood, and another Blean Wood may be found farther east near the village of Herne. The tall Companula, known as the Canterbury Bell, blooms abundantly in all these beautiful woods. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 OF IN KENT WITH CHARLES DICKINS This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by Ruth Golding. IN KENT WITH CHARLES DICKINS by Thomas Frost Chapter 8 Descending Harveldown into the valley of the star, we had a fine view over the ancient city of Canterbury, with the cathedral in its midst, the grey towers of its many churches rising here and there above the surrounding roofs, and the green pastures around, with the river winding through them like a silver thread upon green velvet, and the cattle that Sydney Cooper has so often painted reclining on the verdant banks. Rooks were sailing about the cathedral towers, as in Dickins's description of the scene, and the towers themselves, overlooking many a long unaltered mile of a rich country and its pleasant streams, were cutting the bright air. Entering the sunny street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in the hot light, we began at once to look about the dear old tranquil streets, which David Copperfield held in such affectionate remembrance, the shadows of the venerable gateways and churches, the old houses and the stately grey cathedral, with the rooks sailing about the towers. Entering a stationer's shop on the right-hand side of the high street, and wondering whether it was the shop at which Dickins bought a copy of Crookshank's bottle in 1847, when on his way to Broadstairs, for his annual allowance of sea air, we each purchased a sheet of letter paper, embellished with an engraving of the cathedral, whereon to write to our wives, notifying them of our safe arrival in the capital of East Kent. And then strolled towards the cathedral, looking as we went, for old houses, which might have stood for the likenesses of those in which Dickins established Mr. Wickfield and his amiable daughter and the learned Dr. Strong. We were not long in coming upon a house which we at once assigned to the weak-minded lawyer, quote, a very old house bulging out over the road, a house with long, low lattice windows bulging out still further, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, end quote. Dr. Strong's house we found, or thought we found, which was perhaps more gratifying than the result would have been if we had known exactly where to look for it, nearer the cathedral, quote, a grave-building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the cathedral towers to walk with clarkly bearing on the grass-plot, end quote. Then we strolled into the precincts of the cathedral, where there are some remains of the ancient priory, thinking of the description given by Dickins, writing in the person of David Copperfield, of, quote, 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, end quote. Time did not permit us to survey the interior of the cathedral, nor did my desire to view everything associated with Dickins and his imperishable creations require me to do so. For though it is in the shadow of the venerable pile that Pegatee, returning from his weary pilgrimage in quest of Emily, meets the fallen Martha in the dramatic version of the story, the incident is described by Dickins as occurring in some dark nook of the metropolis. We pardon the transfer, however, for the sake of that triumph of the scene painter's art, the moonlit exterior of the cathedral, with the snow lying deep upon the ground, the white-robed choristers filing past the lighted windows and the organ peeling forth that grand anthem. Some of the still nooks where the ivied growth of centuries creeps over gabled ends and ruined walls are very curious, and suggested to me the idea of portions of Austin Friars and Great St. Helens in the City of London mixed with the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. From the green court in which the sedenary is situated, on the site of an ancient monastery, a long narrow covered passage paved with flagstones, and known as the dark entry, crosses the brick walk, forming a communication at its eastern extremity with the cloisters, the crypt, and by a private staircase with the interior of the cathedral, and at its western end, through the green court, with a portion of the precincts called the oaks. It is a gloomy passage, even by day, and the ill repute which has clung to it for more than three hundred years causes it to be avoided after dark by all but the strongest-minded persons even now. The story of priestly profligacy, illicit love, jealousy, revenge, and crime associated with this gloomy passage and the old house at the corner, dates from the reign of Henry VIII. The house mentioned was at the time indicated the abode of a portly cannon, who had in his service as housekeeper a young woman, comely of countenance, neat in her attire, modest in her demeanour, whose name was Ellen Bean, but whom the cannon was won't to speak of as Nell the Cook. One evening a young lady arrived at the cannon's house and took up her abode with him, much to the dissatisfaction of the comely housekeeper. To all his friends the cannon spoke of her as his niece, and represented that her father had gone abroad confiding her to his guardianship. But doubts of the voraciousness of this statement soon entered the mind of Ellen Bean, who probably knew that the cannon's virtue was not equal to his learning, and she resolved to ascertain whether they were well founded. A series of surreptitious listenings at doors and peeping through keyholes raised her suspicions to moral certainty. But the pretty housekeeper, though her countenance was overcast with gloom and her manner became moody, would take no action upon them until she had obtained stronger confirmation. Then she would have a terrible revenge, which should be talked of in Canterbury for many a year afterwards. For the modest look and the prim manner of Pretty Nell were but as the snow on Hecler, which seems to forbid the notion that hidden fires rage beneath. Assured at lengths of the young lady's frailty and the cannon's infidelity to herself, she sprinkled poison in a game pie of which both partook, and within a few hours afterwards both were dead. The cannon and the lady were buried in the nave of the Cathedral, and the clergy did their utmost to prevent their fate and the circumstances which had brought it about from becoming the subjects of scandalous comment. Ellen Bean was never seen afterwards, and was supposed to have been sent away. Her victims were yet unburied when it was rumoured through the city that persons passing along the dark entry had heard subdued groans which seemed to proceed from beneath the flagstones, one of which, beside the cannon's house, appeared to have been removed and relayed, the freshness of the mortar being remarked by the persons whom the rumour attracted to the spot. These crossed themselves and shuddered with horror when they heard the groans, and then went their way, and after three days the dreadful sounds were no longer heard. Just a week after the day when they had first been heard it was on a Friday. A man who passed through the dark entry during the hours of darkness reached his home pale with terror declaring that he had seen the ghost of the cannon's housekeeper. From that time the gloomy passage was avoided after dark. But from time to time strangers who knew not the ill repute of the place, or cantiberians who disregarded it, saw, if they passed through it on a Friday night, the spectral presentment of Nell the Cook, standing by the door of the house in which the crime had been committed. Footnote! This tradition is not yet worn out. A small maimed figure of a female in a sitting position and holding something like a frying pan in her hand may still be seen on the covered passage which crosses the brick walk and adjoins the house belonging to the sixth provendal stall. There are those who would even yet hesitate to thread the dark entry on a Friday. Barum! End of footnote! About a hundred years afterwards the flagstone nearest to that house became loose, and on its being taken up, with a view to its relaying, a vault twelve feet deep was discovered at the bottom of which was a female skeleton in a sitting position with a picture and a piece of pie crust beside it. It was surmised that the friends of the cannon, having traced the crime to Ellen Bean and determined that she should die, yet wishing to avoid the scandal of a public investigation, had buried the wretched woman alive and placed a portion of the poisoned pie in the vault in order that, if the slow torture of starvation tempted her to eat it, she might suffer before death the agonies to which she had condemned her victims. I am not aware that her unquiet ghost has been seen of late years, but the belief that it haunts the dark entry still lingers in the city, and it would not surprise me to learn that there are persons living in Canterbury who would be found ready to depose that on some Friday night, at some remote period of their lives, they had encountered Nell Cook's ghost in the dark entry. It used to be said that whoever saw the apparition died within a year, but the evidence upon this point would not satisfy a committee of inquiry. Tradition declares that two of the three masons who discovered the skeleton were hanged at Tyburn for murdering the third in the time of Dean Bargrave, who died in 1642. But it is not alleged that they had ever seen the ghost, and if their fate was held to have been brought about by the discovery of the decaying remains of Ellen Bean's mortal part, the belief shows a strange jumble of ideas. I do not know how many persons are supposed to have seen the ghost in the course of more than three centuries, but the only person who having seen it, or being said to have seen it, is recorded to have died within the year, was Charles Story, who in 1780 was hanged at Oton Hill, and afterwards gibbeted on Chatham Downes for the murder of a journeyman paper-maker. It was Dr. Johnson, wasn't it, said the curate, as we came out of the precinct, who said he liked to hear ghost stories because he regarded them as so many additional evidences of the immortality of the soul. Yes, a propos of the story that was then circulating concerning the second Lord Littleton, I replied. I think the old doctor's faith must have been of the kind that requires stimulants to keep it alive. The anecdote shows that a belief in ghosts is not incompatible with a high order of intellect. Observed our friend. How any man of even ordinary intelligence can believe ghost stories I can't imagine, said the curate. Do you distinguish between ghost stories and ghosts? I asked. I don't see where the line can be drawn, he rejoined, after a little reflection. You don't, said I. Suppose you heard an improbable story about a tiger. Would you say you couldn't distinguish between tiger stories and tigers? Oh! he ejaculated, now I see your meaning. But I should know there are tigers, though I might not believe every traveller's story about them, while I should not believe a ghost story for the sufficient reason that I don't believe in ghosts. Why not? I asked. His only reply was a significant shrug. Do you? he asked with a smile. I neither believe nor disbelieve, I replied. I am disposed to be skeptical as to the ghost stories I hear. But my skepticism does not extend to a denial of the possibility of ghostly appearances. And thorough unbelief on the subject seems to me to be inconsistent with belief in the existence of an immortal spirit, the union of which with the body is dissolved by death. Did you ever see a ghost? The curate inquired, after a brief pause, during which the scoffing smile had faded from his countenance. No, I replied, though I was once sitting in a room with a friend who seemed to see something which I did not see. It was evening twilight. Opposite to us were two doors, the one on the left hand opening from another room and the other from the open air. Both were just a jar. There was scarcely a breath of air stirring, yet the left-hand door swung slowly open until it stood at a right angle with the wall, and almost at the moment that it ceased to move the other door swung open in precisely the same manner. It was just as if some person had entered invisibly at one door and passed out at the other. Did you see that? my companion asked. I had seen nothing and he didn't say what he had seen, but his look and manner conveyed the impression that he had seen something strange and inexplicable. That is something like the delusion of Nicolai, the Berlin bookseller, who thought he saw persons whom others in the room could not see, observed our friend. But have you ever heard a real and well authenticated ghost story? said the curate. I mean an instance in which a ghost, or supposed ghost, has been seen, or been supposed to have been seen, by the person who told the story. I can tell you one which fulfills all your requirements, I replied. I heard it many years ago from a maternal aunt, whose remains now rest in Beckenham Churchyard. She was then on the shady side of fifty, and neither imbued with superstitious beliefs, nor gifted with the imaginative powers which sometimes invest very trivial and prosaic circumstances with an air of romance and mystery. She was returning one night from a visit to a sister when she saw, or thought she saw, between the churchyard and a thick plantation, a figure draped in white, standing motionless in the middle of the road. Slightly accelerating her pace, she went forward, not without a nervous tremor, and when she had walked a few yards beyond the mysterious object, she ventured to look back. The figure had disappeared, though not the faintest sound had reached her ears. The ghostly figure had previously been seen by several other persons, and was supposed to be the disembodied spirit of a young man who had recently committed suicide, in consequence of a disappointment in love, at the house which the plantation concealed from the road. The faculty of ghost-seeing has been observed to be frequently developed in several members of the same family. And I may add to the preceding story, which gave the Curit something to think about as we walked towards the railway station, that my mother, then in her eighty-seventh year, related to me, a few months before her death, a strange incident which I regarded as a delusion. She said that while lying in bed, but in broad daylight, she suddenly became aware of the presence of a double of herself, standing between the foot of the bed and the open door of the chamber, in the full light of the morning sun, the door being midway between the window of her chamber and that of another room, into which it opened. The figure stood there several minutes without the slightest movement. My mother regarded it attentively, three times closing her eyes, and opening them again to test its reality. Twice she beheld it still standing on the same spot, but when she opened her eyes the third time it was gone. Such visitations are usually held by the superstitious to portend the speedy death of the person who sees the fetch, but my mother lived several months afterwards. How recollections of the long past are evoked from the cells of memory. Let me tell another ghost story. About fifteen years ago I had my abode for a time on the second floor of an old house in one of those Westminster streets in which many of the aristocracy once had their town residences, and which still retain an air of faded gentility. The primary tenant was a middle-aged widower, morose of manor, and of irregular and dissipated habits. He lived there alone, keeping no servant, and but for the occasional presence of a pale young woman who moved silently about the house and was scarcely ever heard to speak, seeming to be his own housekeeper. This occasional visitant was said to be a married daughter of the morose man whose wife had died a few years previously. Two discoveries were made by me, very shortly after I became a lodger in that house. The first was that the house had the reputation of being haunted. I found that my children would not leave the rooms after the evening twilight began to darken the landings and staircases at no time very light, and that this disinclination to enter the gloom below was shared though less openly exhibited by my servant. On inquiring the cause the young woman told me that the house was haunted, that they say that he killed his wife with ill usage, and that her ghost walks about the house at night and has been seen by several persons. I gave no encouragement to this belief, and thought no more about the matter until something occurred which recalled it in a very forcible manner. The second discovery that I made was that the morose parent of the pale and silent young woman was in the habit of going out about eight o'clock in the evening, and returning in an inebriated condition in the small hours of the morning. On several successive nights or mornings I heard this objectionable householder signalise his return by banging the street door and tramping heavily up the uncarpeted stairs. On the occasion to which I have alluded I heard him talking as if to himself. I listened, but the footsteps were evidently those of only one person. He entered one of the rooms on the first floor, which he reserved for his own occupation, and for some time afterwards I heard his voice at intervals, now in the low tone of self-communion, now raised to the pitch of drunken or delirious raving. All at once I heard him stumbling up the stairs, ascending them as rapidly as his inebriated condition permitted him to do, but with unsteady steps and staggering gate. He reached the second floor landing, reeled heavily against the door of my sitting-room, and then began to ascend higher. I've got you now! he shouted in a tone of savage exultation. You can't get away from me now! What, I asked myself as I listened, could be the meaning of this. The rooms on the third floor were unoccupied, and no footsteps had preceded those of the drunken man up those unused stairs. I heard him enter one room after another, slamming the doors, and then he stood still. Where are you? I heard him say. Where have you got to? There was no reply, and in a few minutes he began to descend the stairs, which he did more quietly than he had gone up, muttering to himself, in a tone so low that only the sound reached me, without the sense. I heard him no more that night, and for several days afterwards he was neither heard nor seen. The pale young woman glided noiselessly about the house, and in reply to my questions concerning him informed me that he was very ill. When he was able to leave his chamber he was pallid and nervous looking, and his hands shook so much that he could scarcely raise to his lips the glass of ale that was before him in his counting-house when I saw him for the first time after the strange incident I have related. Delirium tremens, I said to myself. He must have seen his wife's ghost, was the comment of persons to whom I told the story of that night. That he saw or thought he saw somebody or something that eluded him, and had disappeared when he reached the unoccupied rooms on the third floor there can be no doubt. What or who it was remained unknown to everyone but himself, unless he shared the secret with that reticent pallidity who seemed to be the only relative or friend who ever entered the house.