CHAPTER XII.
COOLING, CLIFFE, AND HIGHAM.
"And now the range of marshes lay clear before us, with the sails of the ships on the river growing out of it; and we went into the Churchyard . . . and the light wind strewed it with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees."
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"What might have been your opinion of the place?"
"A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp and work; work, swamp, mist, and mudbank."—Great Expectations.
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"They were now in the open country; the houses were very few and scattered at long intervals, often miles apart. Occasionally they came upon a cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low board put across the open door, to keep the scrambling children from the road; others shut up close, while all the family were working in the fields. These were often the commencement of a little village; and after an interval came a wheelwright's shed, or perhaps a blacksmith's forge; then a thriving farm, with sleepy cows lying about the yard, and horses peering over the low wall, and scampering away when harnessed horses passed upon the road, as though in triumph at their freedom."—The Old Curiosity Shop.
Now for a long tramp in the country of the Marshes—the famous "Meshes" of Great Expectations. The air is sultry on this Thursday afternoon, and there is thunder in the distance. The storm, however, does not pass over Rochester, but further on we find traces of it where the roadways have been washed up. Afterwards the air becomes deliciously cool, and that hum of all Nature which succeeds the quiet preceding the storm is distinctly perceptible. Crossing Rochester Bridge, keeping to the right along Strood and Frindsbury—the churchyard of which affords a splendid view of Rochester, Chatham, and the Medway—passing up Four Elms Hill and through the little village of Wainscot, nothing of interest calls for notice until we have travelled some miles from Strood. After crossing a tramway belonging to Government, and utilized by the Royal Engineers as a means of communication between the powder-magazine and Chatham Barracks, we observe that vegetation, which is so rich in other parts of Kent, here appears to be dwarfed and stunted. A hop-garden presents a very miserable contrast, in its struggle for existence, to others we have seen in the more central parts of the county, and even some of these were far from being luxuriant, owing to such a peculiarly wet and cold season. The hedges in places are diversified with the small gold and violet star-like flowers and the green and scarlet berries of the climbing woody nightshade, or bitter-sweet (Solanum Dulcamara), often mistaken for the deadly nightshade (Atropa Belladonna—a fine bushy herbaceous perennial, with large ovate-shaped leaves, and lurid, purple bell-shaped flowers), quite a different plant, and happily somewhat rare in England. The delicate light-blue flowers of the chicory are very abundant here.
A tramp of upwards of six miles from Rochester, by way of Hoo,[35] brings us to Lodge Hill, overlooking Perry Hill, which affords a magnificent view of the mouth of the Thames beyond the low-lying Marshes, and of Canvey Island, off the coast of Essex, on the opposite side. By the kindness of a farmer's wife we are allowed to take a short cut through the farm-garden and grounds, which leads direct to Cooling (or Cowling) Church, a cheerless, grey-stone structure, the tower standing out as a beacon long before we reach it.