After some luncheon at the Boar Inn, we are sorry to terminate our visit to this pleasant place; but time flies, and trains, like tides, "wait for no man." So we hurry to the railway station, passing on our way a fine hop-garden, and take tickets by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway for Maidstone. We have a few minutes to spare, and our notice is attracted to a curious group in the waiting-room. It consists of a rural policeman, and what afterwards turned out, to be his prisoner, a slouching but good-humoured-looking labourer, with a "fur cap" like Rogue Riderhood. The officer leans against the mantelpiece, pleasantly chatting with his charge, who is seated on the bench, leisurely eating some bread and cheese with a large clasp-knife, in the intervals of which proceeding he recounts some experiences for the edification of the officer and bystanders. These are occasionally received with roars of laughter. One of his stories relates to a house-breaker who, being "caught in the act" by a policeman, and being asked what he was doing, coolly replied, "Attending to my business, of course!" (This must surely be taken "in a Pickwickian sense.") After finishing his bread and cheese, the charge eats an apple, and then regales himself with something from a large bottle. The unconcernedness of the man, whatever his offence may be (poaching perhaps), is in painful contrast to the careworn and anxious faces of his wife and little daughter (both decently dressed), the latter about seven years old, and made too familiar with crime at such an age. After we arrive at Maidstone (only a few minutes' run by railway), it is a wretched sight to witness the leave-taking at the gaol. First the man shakes hands with his wife, all his forced humour having left him, and then affectionately kisses the little girl, draws a cuff over his eyes, and walks heavily into the gaol after the officer. We are glad to notice that he is not degraded as a wild beast by being handcuffed. It was an episode that Dickens himself perhaps would have witnessed with interest, and possibly stored up for future use. What particularly strikes us is the difference in the relations between these people and what would be the case under similar circumstances in a large town. There is not that feature of hardness, that familiarity with crime which breeds contempt, in the rural incident. Poor man! let us hope his punishment will soon be finished, and that he may return to his family, and not become an old offender; but for the present, as Mr. Bagnet says, "discipline must be maintained."
Maidstone, the county and assize town of Kent, appears to be a thriving and solid-looking place, as there are several paper-mills, saw-mills, stone quarries, and other indications of prosperity. There are but few historical associations connected with it, as Maidstone "has lived a quiet life." Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion, and the attack on the town by Fairfax in 1648, are among the principal incidents. Dickens frequently walked or drove over to this town from Gad's Hill. Many of the names which we notice over the shops in the principal street are very suggestive of, if not actually used for, some of the characters in his novels, e.g. Pell, Boozer, Hibling, Fowle, Stuffins, Bunyard, Edmed, Gregsbey, Dunmill, and Pobgee.
It has been said that Maidstone possesses a gaol; it also has large barracks, and, what is better still, a Museum, Free Library, and Public Gardens. Chillington Manor House,—a highly picturesque and well-preserved Elizabethan structure, formerly the residence of the Cobhams,—contains the Museum and Library. Standing in a quiet nook in the Brenchley Gardens, the lines of George Macdonald, quoted in the local Guide Book, well describe its beauties:—
"Its windows were aërial and latticed,
Lovely and wide and fair,
And its chimneys like clustered pillars
Stood up in the thin blue air."
The Museum—the new wing of which was built as a memorial of his brother, by Mr. Samuel Bentlif—is the property of the Corporation, and owes much of its contents to the liberality of Mr. Pretty, the first curator, and to the naturalist and traveller, Mr. J. L. Brenchley. It contains excellent fine art, archæological, ethnological, natural history, and geological collections. Among the last-named, in addition to other interesting local specimens, are some fossil remains of the mammoth (Elephas primigenius) from the drift at Aylesford, obtained by its present able curator, Mr. Edward Bartlett, to whom we are indebted for a most pleasant ramble through the various rooms. We notice an original "Dickens-item" in the shape of a very good carved head of the novelist, forming the right top panel of an oak fire-place, the opposite side being one of Tennyson, by a local carver named W. Hughes, who was formerly employed at Gad's Hill Place. No pilgrim in "Dickens-Land" should omit visiting Maidstone and its treasures in Chillington Manor House; nor of seeing the splendid view of the Medway from the churchyard, looking towards Tovil.
We are particularly anxious to verify Dickens's experience of the walk from Maidstone to Rochester. In a letter to Forster, written soon after he came to reside at Gad's Hill Place, he says:—"I have discovered that the seven miles between Maidstone and Rochester is one of the most beautiful walks in England," and so indeed we find it to be. It is, however, a rather long seven miles; so, cheerfully leaving the gloomy-looking gaol to our right and proceeding along the raised terrace by the side of the turn-pike road, we pass through the little village of Sandling, and soon after commence the ascent of the great chalk range of hills which form the eastern water-parting of the Medway. The most noticeable object before we reach "Upper Bell" is "Kit's Coty (or Coity) House," about one and a half miles north-east from Aylesford, and not very far from the Bell Inn. According to Mr. Phillips Bevan, the peculiar name is derived from the Celtic "Ked," and "Coity" or "Coed" (Welsh), and means the Tomb in the Wood. Seymour considers the words a corruption of "Catigern's House." Below Kit's Coty House, Mr. Wright, the archæologist, found the remains of a Roman villa, with quantities of Samian ware, coins, and other articles.
There are many excavations in the chalk above Kit's Coty House, apparently for interments; and the whole district appears in remote ages to have been a huge cemetery. Tradition states that "the hero Catigern was buried here, after the battle fought at Aylesford between Hengist and Vortigern."