After much perseverance, and in spite of almost as many difficulties as beset poor little David Copperfield himself in his search for his aunt (who, as the Dover boatmen told him, "lived in the South Foreland Light, and had singed her whiskers by doing so"—"that she was made fast to the great buoy outside the harbour, and could only be visited at half-tide"—"that she was locked up in Maidstone Jail for child-stealing"—and that "she was seen to mount a broom in the last high wind and make direct for Calais"), Mr. Ashby-Sterry succeeded, although his greatest embarrassment arose from that irrepressible nuisance, "Buggins the Builder," who cannot be controlled even in the neighbourhood of Dover, so "hugely does he delight to mar those spots that have been hallowed by antiquity, seclusion, or the pen of the novelist. Hence the abode of Betsey Trotwood is not so pleasant as it must have been formerly, for other houses have clustered about the back and the front." But Mr. Ashby-Sterry quite satisfied himself as to the identity on Dover Heights of the very neat little cottage, and assures us that "the house, however, still stands high, the fresh breezes from over the sea and across the Down smite it. It still has a view of the sea, though perhaps not so uninterrupted as it was in the days of David Copperfield." He further states that it is, perhaps, not quite so neat as it was in Miss Betsey Trotwood's time, though there are no donkeys about. Here are the bow windows, with the room above, where Mr. Dick alarmed poor David by nodding and laughing at him on his first arrival. The window on the right must have belonged to the neat room "with the drugget-covered carpet," and the old-fashioned furniture brightly polished, where might be found "the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries, the old china, the punch-bowl full of dried rose leaves, the tall press guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and wonderfully out of keeping with the rest." On the strength of this description by an ardent lover of Dickens, we fully make up our minds to visit Dover at no distant date to see Miss Betsey Trotwood's house for ourselves.
À propos of Miss Trotwood's domicile, we have been favoured by Mr. C. K. Worsfold, an old resident of Dover, with a letter containing some interesting particulars, from which we extract the following:—
"Dickens's description of the local habitation of Betsey Trotwood is not consistent with the surroundings. The hills on either side of the town belong to the War Department, and are occupied as fortifications; on the eastern side is the Castle, and on the western side barracks and forts. On the western heights there is a house somewhat answering to Dickens's description, having a garden in front of it, and a small plot of grass in front of the garden; and about forty years ago there lived in this house a lady of rather masculine character, who always resented any intrusion of boys, and perhaps donkeys, on the grass in front of her house and garden, and I believe she was occasionally rather rough with the boys; but there the likeness to Betsey Trotwood ends. This was a married lady living with her husband.
"I know it was a matter of conversation forty years ago that Dickens must have found his original in the lady in question, but I think he was rather in the habit of selecting his characters without reference to locality, and then adapting them to his requirements.
"Dickens was a frequent visitor to Dover, and he may possibly have been a witness of some encounter between this lady and the boys, and on that occasion donkeys may have been present.[34] I do not know of any relative of the lady answering to Miss Trotwood's worthy nephew."
"A moderate stroke," as Mr. Datchery said, "is all I am justified in scoring up"; and we reluctantly leave the "sunny street of Canterbury, dozing, as it were, in the hot light," and take our places in the train for Chatham, distant about twenty-seven miles.
The only new parts of interest which we go over, on our return journey by rail, are the green fields surrounding the ancient city, wherein are numbers of those beautiful and quiet-feeding cattle, which the eminent artist, Mr. T. Sidney Cooper, R.A. (who resides in the neighbourhood), loves to paint, and paints so well; and in due time we pass the chalk-topped hills called Harbledown, overlooking Canterbury, from whence the best view of the city is obtained, and safely reach our headquarters at Rochester.