Mr. Kitton has favoured me with permission to quote the following extract from his Supplement to Charles Dickens by Pen and Pencil, being the late Mr. E. Laman Blanchard's recollections of this pleasant neighbourhood:—
"In the year Charles Dickens came to reside at Gad's Hill, I took possession of a country house at Rosherville, which I occupied for some seventeen years. During that period a favourite morning walk was along the high road, of many memories, leading from Gravesend to Rochester, and on repeated occasions I had the good fortune to encounter the great novelist making one of his pedestrian excursions towards the Gravesend or Greenhithe railway station, where he would take the train to travel up to town. Generally, by a curious coincidence, we passed each other, with an interchange of salutations, at about the same spot. This was on the outskirts of the village of Chalk, where a picturesque lane branched off towards Shorne and Cobham. Here the brisk walk of Charles Dickens was always slackened, and he never failed to glance meditatively for a few moments at the windows of a corner house on the southern side of the road, advantageously situated for commanding views of the river and the far-stretching landscape beyond. It was in that house he had lived immediately after his marriage, and there many of the earlier chapters of Pickwick were written."
It is a long walk from Cobham to Chalk church,—the church, by the bye, being about a mile from the village, as is usual in many places in Kent,—and as the shades of evening are coming upon us, and as we are desirous of having a sketch of the curious stone-carved figure over the entrance porch, we hurry on, and succeed in effecting our object, though under the difficulty of approaching darkness.
Curious Old Figure over the Porch, Chalk Church.
This figure represents an old priest in a stooping position, with an upturned vessel (probably a jug), about which we were informed there is probably a legend. Dickens used to be a great admirer of this quaint carving, and it is said that whenever he passed it, he always took off his hat to it, or gave it a friendly nod, as to an old acquaintance. [We regretfully record the fact that since our visit, both porch and figure have been demolished.]
Amid the many strange sounds peculiar to summer night in the country, a very weird and startling effect is produced in this lonely spot, in the dusk of the evening, by the shrill whistle of the common redshank (Totanus calidris), so called from the colour of its legs, which are of a crimson-red. This bird, as monotonous in its call-note as the corn-crake, to which it is closely allied, doubtless has its home in the marshes hereabout, in which, and in fen countries, it greatly delights. The peculiar whistle is almost ventriloquial in its ubiquity, and must be heard to be properly appreciated.
We retrace our steps to the Dover road, and by the light of a match applied to our pipes, see that our pedometer marks upwards of fifteen miles for this tramp—"a rather busy afternoon," as Mr. Datchery once said.
Since these lines were written, the third volume of the Autobiography and Reminiscences of W. P. Frith, R.A., has been published, in which there is a most interesting reminiscence of Dickens; indeed, there are many scattered throughout the three volumes, but the one in question refers to "a stroll" which Dickens took with Mr. Frith and other friends in July 1868. Mr. Cartwright, the celebrated dentist, was one of the party, and the "stroll" was in reality, as the genial R. A. describes it, "a fearfully long walk" such as he shall never forget; nor the night he passed, without once closing his eyes in sleep, after it. "Dickens," continues Mr. Frith, "was a great pedestrian. His strolling was at the rate of perhaps a little under four miles an hour. He was used to the place,—I was not, and suffered accordingly."
Having a shrewd suspicion that this referred to one of the long walks taken in our tramp, the present writer communicated with Mr. Frith on the subject, and he was favoured with the following reply:—