Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 2 Great Britain and Ireland, Part 2 by Halsey, Francis W. (Francis Whiting), 1851-1919, Various

GAD'S HILL [Footnote: From "A Literary Pilgrimage." By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, J. B. Lippincott Co. Copyright, 1895.]

BY THEODORE F. WOLFE

"To go to Gad's Hill," said Dickens, in a note of invitation, "you leave Charing Cross at nine o'clock by North Kent Railway for Higham." Guided by these directions and equipped with a letter from Dickens's son, we find ourselves gliding eastward among the chimneys of London and, a little later, emerging into the fields of Kent,--Jingle's region of "apples, cherries, hops, and women." The Thames is on our left; we pass many river-towns,--Dartford where Wat Tyler lived, Gravesend where Pocahontas died,--but most of our way is through the open country, where we have glimpses of "fields," "parks," and leafy lanes, with here and there picturesque camps of gypsies or of peripatetic rascals "goin' a-hoppin.'" From wretched Higham a walk of half an hour among orchards and between hedges of wild-rose and honeysuckle brings us to the hill which Shakespeare and Dickens have made classic ground, and soon we see, above the tree tops, the glittering vane which surmounted the home of the world's greatest novelist.

The name Gad's (Vagabond's) Hill is a survival of the time when the depredations of highwaymen upon "pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings and traders riding to London with fat purses" gave to this spot the ill repute it had in Shakespeare's day; it was here he located Falstaff's great exploit. The tuft of evergreens which crowns the hill about Dickens' retreat is the remnant of thick woods once closely bordering the highway, in which the "men in buckram" lay concealed, and the robbery of the Franklin was committed in front of the spot where the Dickens house stands. By this road passed Chaucer, who had property near by, gathering from the pilgrims his "Canterbury Tales." In all time to come the great master of romance who came here to live and die will be worthily associated with Shakespeare and Chaucer in the renown of Gad's Hill.