‘Be quick: your time’s short!’
But we knew better. Rochester was but seven miles off, and in Rochester we had made up our minds to sleep that night. The tramps had grown as lazy as we, but they did not even pretend to struggle with their laziness. All along the road we saw them lying under the hedges and in shady places. Some were asleep, others day-dreaming. Three women had roused themselves somewhat, and were making preparations for afternoon tea. They had kindled a fire by the wayside, and hung their kettle over it. A little further on, a mother and her children were just coming to the road from the deep, sweet shade of a dingle. On the hill beyond was a grey church, with a graveyard whose graves straggled down the hillside, and next to it a large farmhouse, with red roof and walls, whose colour was softened and harmonised by time. When the children saw we had stopped the machine they ran up at once to beg us to buy queer little round calico-balls, which they called pin-cushions. One had bright black eyes, and, not in the least discomfited by our refusal of the balls, danced merrily around the tricycle. Then she peered into J.’s sketch-book.
Afternoon Tea.
‘He’s drawrin!’ she called to her mother, in a loud stage whisper.
The latter bade her mind her manners. But she still continued her observations.
‘Oh, mother, it’s the church!’ was her next cry.
‘Which, I’m sure, it’s a werry decent church,’ the mother declared, as if to encourage us with her approval; and then they went their way.
Later, when, as we were coasting down a hill, we overtook the party, the same child jumped and clapped her hands, ‘It’s goin’ all by its lone self!’ she screamed; but her sister trudged stolidly on, and spake never a word.
Of the many places on the road to Canterbury, made famous by latter-day pilgrims, few are better known and loved than Gad’s Hill, where honest Jack Falstaff performed his deeds of valour, and where Charles Dickens spent the last years of his life. We had counted upon making it, too, a station by the way. But whether it was that we were just then drifting along in lotus-eaters’ fashion, our feet moving mechanically, or whether the prospect of another long coast made us forgetful of all else, certain it is that, with a glance of admiration at the dark spreading cedars, and another at the inn and its sign, adorned with the picture of Falstaff, we went by without a thought as to where we were. At the foot of the hill a baker told us that up yonder was the house where Mr. Dickens had lived. Were we already in danger of forgetting the aim of our pilgrimage? Would we sacrifice our great end for what we had intended to be but a means to it? ‘Let us,’ I said humbly, ‘try to keep our wits from wool-gathering again, lest we ride through Rochester and Canterbury without knowing it!’ We collected our thoughts in good time; for, lo! as mine host said to the monk, Rochester stands there hard by. Before many minutes we saw in the distance the town of Strood, and beyond it the broad Medway and Rochester, its castle and cathedral towering above the houses clustering about them.