"Please to ease the coach-house doors, and to put up some pegs, agreeably to George Belcher's directions.
"Charles Dickens."
It should be mentioned that George Belcher was the coachman at the time.
Mr. Couchman recalls an interesting custom that was maintained at Gad's Hill. There were a number of tin check plates, marked respectively 3d. and 6d. each, which enabled the person to whom they were given to obtain an equivalent in refreshment of any kind at the Sir John Falstaff. The threepenny checks were for the workmen, and the sixpenny ones for the tradesmen. The chief housemaid had the distribution of these checks to persons employed in the house, the head-gardener to those engaged in the gardens, and the coachman to those in the stables. On one occasion, our informant remembers when his men were engaged upon some work at Gad's Hill, such checks were given out to them, and that he also had one offered to him; but, recollecting that his position as a master scarcely entitled him to the privilege, he stated his objections to the housemaid, who said in reply that it was a pity to break an old custom, he had better have one. "So," says our informant, "I had a sixpenny ticket with the others, and obtained my refreshment."
He has in his photographic album a carte-de-visite of Charles Dickens, by Watkins. It is the well-known one in which the novelist is represented in a sitting position, dressed in a grey suit; and the owner considered it a very good likeness. He also showed us a funeral card which he thought had been sent to him by the family of Dickens at the time of his death, but judging by its contents, this seems impossible. It is, however, well worth transcribing:—
To the Memory of
Charles Dickens
(England's most popular author),
who died at his Residence,
Higham, near Rochester, Kent,
June 9th, 1870.
Aged 58 years.
He was a sympathizer with the poor, suffering, and
oppressed; and by his death one of England's
greatest writers is lost to the world.
Mr. Couchman confirms the verbal sketch of Dickens as drawn by his neighbour, Mrs. Masters, and states that Dickens used to put up his dogs ("Linda" and "Turk"), "boisterous companions as they always were," in the stables whenever he came to see him on business.
Mr. William Ball, J.P., of Hillside, Strood, kindly favoured us with many interviews, and generally took great interest in the subject of our visit to "Dickens-Land," rendering invaluable assistance in our enquiries. This gentleman is the son of Mr. John H. Ball, the well-known contractor, who removed old Rochester Bridge; he is also a brother-in-law of the late gifted tenor, Mr. Joseph Maas, to whom a handsome memorial tablet, consisting of a marble medallion of the deceased, over which is a lyre with one of the strings broken, has since been erected on the east wall of the south transept of Rochester Cathedral. By Mr. Ball's considerate courtesy and that of his daughters, we are allowed to see many interesting relics of Charles Dickens and Gad's Hill.[15] When Mr. Ball's father removed the old bridge in 1859, it will be remembered that he offered to present the novelist with one of the balustrades as a souvenir, the offer being gracefully and promptly accepted, as the following letter testifies:—
"Gad's Hill Place,
"Higham by Rochester, Kent.
"Thursday, eighth June, 1859.