ir huge horses, their red coats
glancing in the occasional gleams of wayside lamps, fire-flies making
the orchards shine, the sunset lighting up vast clouds that lay across
the western sky, and the whole scene filled with evening stillness. When
we stopped to change horses, the quiet was almost oppressive. Soon after
nine we espied the welcome lantern of Gad's Hill Place and the open
gates. And so ended Dickens's last pilgrimage to Canterbury.

There was another interesting spot near Gad's Hill which was one of
Dickens's haunts, and this was the "Druid-stone," as it is called, at
Maidstone. This is within walking distance of his house, along the
breezy hillside road, which we remember blossomy and wavy in the summer
season, with open spaces in the hedges where one may look over wide
hilly slopes, and at times come upon strange cuts down into the chalk
which pervades this district. We turned into a lane from the dusty road,
and, following our leader over a barred gate, came into wide grassy
fields full of summer's bloom and glory. A short walk farther brought us
to the Druid-stone, which Dickens thought to be, from the fitness of its
position, simply a vantage-ground chosen by priests,--whether Druid or
Christian of course it would be impossible to say,--from which to
address a multitude. The rock served as a kind of background and
sounding-board, while the beautiful sloping of the sward upward from the
speaker made it an excellent position for out-of-door discourses. On
this day it was only a blooming solitude, the birds had done all the
talking, until we arrived. It was a fine afternoon haunt, and one
worthy of a visit, apart from the associations which make the place
dear.

One of the weirdest neighborhoods to Gad's Hill, and one of those most
closely associated with Dickens, is the village of Cooling. A cloudy day
proved well enough for Cooling; indeed, was undoubtedly chosen by the
adroit master of hospitalities as being a fitting sky to show the dark
landscape of "Great Expectations." The pony-carriage went thither to
accompany the walking party and carry the baskets; the whole way, as we
remember, leading on among narrow lanes, where heavy carriages were
seldom seen. We are told in the novel, "On every rail and gate, wet lay
clammy, and the marsh mist was so thick that the wooden finger on the
post directing people to our village--a direction which they never
accepted, for they never came there--was invisible to