"It's a place you may well be fond of and attached to, for it's the prettiest spot in all the country round."—The Village Coquettes.
"The last soft light of the setting sun had fallen on the earth, casting a rich glow on the yellow corn sheaves, and lengthening the shadows of the orchard trees."—The Pickwick Papers.
We reserve this, our last long tramp in "Dickens-Land," for the Friday before our departure. Mrs. Perugini, the novelist's second daughter, had recently told us that this was the most beautiful of all the beautiful parts of Kent, and so indeed it proves to be. Its sylvan scenery is truly unique.
Mr. Charles Dickens the younger, in his valuable annotated Jubilee edition of Pickwick, has included this note relating to Cobham:—
"As all the world knows, the neighbourhood of Rochester was dear to Charles Dickens. There it is that Gad's Hill Place stands, the house to which, as 'a queer, small boy,' he looked forward as the possible reward of an industrious career, and in which he passed the later years of his life; and near Rochester, still approached by the 'delightful walk' here described, is Cobham, one of the most charming villages in that part of Kent. Down the lanes, and through the park to Cobham, was always a favourite walk with Charles Dickens; and he never wearied of acting as cicerone to his guests to its fine church and the quaint almshouses with the disused refectory behind it."
Happily the weather again favours us on this delightful excursion. It is just such a day as that on which we made our visit to Gad's Hill. As we have had much tramping about Rochester during the morning, we prudently take an early afternoon train to Higham, to save our legs. The short distance of about four miles consists almost entirely of tunnels cut through the chalk.
Alighting at Higham Station, we make our way for the Dover Road and reach Pear Tree Lane, which turns out of it for Cobham. We notice in passing through Higham by daylight that the lanes are much closed in by banks, in fact, the tertiary and chalk systems have been cut through to form the roads; but here and there one gets glimpses of the Thames, its course being marked by the white or brown wings of sailing-boats.
The lane above alluded to, a little above Gad's Hill, is the direct road to Cobham, and on entering it we are immediately struck with the different scene presented, as compared with any part of the county we have previously gone over. It is cut through the Thanet Sands, which at first are of ashy gray colour, but after some distance are of a bright red hue, probably owing to infiltration, and the road rises gently until the woods are reached. The vegetation growing on the high banks consists of oak, hazel, beech, sycamore, and Spanish chestnut, in many places intermingled with wild clematis. The branches of the trees are not allowed to grow over into the road, but are kept well cut back so as practically to form a wall on either side, extending in some places to twelve feet high. The effect is to present an almost unbroken surface of various shades of green, deliciously cool and shady in the heat of summer, and brightened here and there in autumn by the rich orange-coloured fruit of the arum, the scarlet berries of the white bryony, and—deeper in the woods—by the pinky-waxen berries of the spindle-tree, described by Lord Tennyson as "the fruit which in our winter woodland looks a flower."
As the road continually winds in its upward progress, and as no part within view extends beyond a few hundred yards before it turns again, the limit of perspective is frequently arrested by a number of evergreen arches. It was a Devonshire lane, so to speak, in a state of cultivation. Of course in the early spring, the delicacy of the fresh green foliage would give another picture; and again the autumnal tints would present a totally different effect under the influence of the rich colouring of decaying vegetation.
No wonder Dickens and his friends had such admiration for this walk, the last, by the way, that he ever enjoyed, on Tuesday, 7th June, 1870, with his sister-in-law, Miss Hogarth, the day before the fatal seizure. In a letter written from Lausanne, so far back as the year 1846, he says:—