having been formally explained to Mr. Snodgrass,
they make arrangements, hire "a case of satisfaction pistols, with the
satisfactory accompaniments of powder, ball, and caps," and "the two
friends returned to their inn." The next ground which they traversed
together to pursue the subject was at Fort Pitt. We will follow them
presently.

In _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_ there is no direct reference to the
Castle itself, but the engraving of it, with the Cathedral in the
background, after the pretty sketch by Mr. Luke Fildes, R.A., will ever
be associated with that beautiful fragment.

Another reference is contained in the preface to _Nicholas Nickleby_,
where Dickens says:--"I cannot call to mind now how I came to hear about
Yorkshire schools when I was a not very robust child, sitting in
by-places near Rochester Castle, with a head full of 'Partridge,'
'Strap,' 'Tom Pipes,' and 'Sancho Panza.'"

A sympathetic notice of the Castle is also contained in the _Seven Poor
Travellers_. It begins:--

"Sooth to say, he [Time] did an active stroke of
work in Rochester in the old days of the Romans,
and the Saxons, and the Normans, and down to the
times of King John, when the rugged Castle--I will
not undertake to say how many hundreds of years
old then--was abandoned to the centuries of
weather which have so defaced the dark apertures
in its walls, that the ruin looks as if the rooks
and daws had picked its eyes out."

And this, the most touching reference of all, occurs in "One Man in a
Dockyard," contributed by Dickens[7] to _Household Words_ in 1851:--

"There was Rochester Castle, to begin with. I
surveyed the massive ruin from the Bridge, and
thought what a brief little practical joke I
seemed to be, in comparison with its solidity,
stature, strength, and length of life. I went
inside; and, standing in the solemn shadow of its
walls, looking up at the blue sky, its only
remaining roof, (to the disturbance of the crows
and jackdaws who garrison the venerable fortress
now,) calculated how much wall of that thickness
I, or any other man, could build in his whole
life,--say from eight years old to eighty,--and
what a ridiculous result would be produced. I
climbed the rugged staircase, stopping