* * * * * *
Mr. Robert Lake Cobb, of Mockbeggar House, Higham, a land agent of high position and a County Councillor, told us that he took in the Pickwick Papers as they appeared in numbers, and he recollected how eagerly he read them, and how tiresome it was to have to wait month by month until the story was finished. The book made a tremendous sensation at the time. Many years afterwards Charles Dickens came to reside at Gad's Hill Place, and the families became intimate. "Mr. Dickens," observed our informant, "was a very pleasant neighbour, and had always got something nice to say. He was a dreadful man to walk—very few could keep up with him."
Mr. Cobb had one son, Herbert, who was a playfellow of Dickens's boys; and as illustrative of the interest he took in his neighbours, on one occasion the novelist and our informant were talking over matters, when the former said, "What are you going to bring your boy up to?" "A land agent," replied Mr. Cobb. "Ah," said the novelist, "whatever you do, make him self-reliant." He thought that of all the sons Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens most resembled his father.
Among the notable people Mr. Cobb met at Gad's Hill Place were Mr. Forster, Mr. Wilkie Collins, Mr. Fechter the actor, and others. When Hans Christian Andersen was visiting there, Dickens took him to Higham Church. Mr. Cobb spoke of the pleasant picnic parties which Dickens gave on Blue Bell Hill. He was of opinion that Cob-Tree Hall in that neighbourhood, about one and a half miles from Aylesford, nearly parallel with the river, suggested the original of Manor Farm, Dingley Dell. It formerly belonged to Mr. Franklin, and is now occupied by Major Trousdell. Mr. Cobb believed that Dickens took the title of No Thoroughfare—which he and Wilkie Collins contributed to the 1867 number of All the Year Round, and in the dramatizing of which Dickens subsequently was so interested—from the notice-boards which were put up by Lord Darnley in many parts of Cobham Park.
On one occasion our informant remembers a stoppage of the train in Higham tunnel, which caused some consternation to the passengers, as no explanation of the delay was forthcoming from any of the railway officials. The station-master coming up at the time, Dickens remarked—"Ah! an unwilling witness, Mr. Wood."
Mr. Cobb mentioned that Miss Hogarth, Dickens's sister-in-law, was a great favourite in the neighbourhood, from her kindness and thoughtfulness for all with whom she came in contact, and especially the poor of Higham.