re in disused pits. A portion of the road higher up is cut through
the Thanet sands, which rest on the chalk. Again and again we stop, and
turn to admire the winding valley of the Medway. As we get more into the
country and leave the town behind, we find the roadsides still decked
with summer flowers, notably the fine dark blue Canterbury bell--the
nettle-leaved Campanula (_Campanula Trachelium_)--and the exquisite
light-blue chicory (_Cichorium Intybus_); but the flowers of the latter
are so evanescent that, when gathered, they fade in an hour or two. This
beautiful starlike-blossomed plant is abundant in many parts of Kent.
We pass on the right the pretty high-standing grounds of Mr. Hulkes at
the "Little Hermitage," and notice the obelisk further to the right on
still higher land, erected about fifty years ago to the memory of
Charles Larkin (a name very suggestive of "the eldest Miss Larkins") of
Rochester,--"a parish orator and borough Hampden"--by his grateful
fellow-citizens.

A walk of less than three miles brings us to the "Sir John Falstaff"--"a
delightfully old-fashioned roadside inn of the coaching days, which
stands on the north side of the road a little below 'Gad's Hill Place,'
and which no man possessed of a penny was ever known to pass in warm
weather."

Mr. Kitton relates in _Dickensiana_ the following amusing story of a
former waiter at the "Falstaff":--

"A few days after Dickens's death, an Englishman, deeply grieved at the
event, made a sort of pilgrimage to Gad's Hill--to the home of the great
novelist. He went into the famous 'Sir John Falstaff Inn' near at hand,
and in the effusiveness of his honest emotions, he could not avoid
taking the country waiter into his confidence.

"'A great loss this of Mr. Dickens,' said the pilgrim.

"'A very great loss to us, sir,' replied the waiter, shaking his head;
'he had all his ale sent in from this house!'"

One of the two lime-trees only remains, but the well and bucket--as
recorded by the _Uncommercial Traveller_ in the chapter on "Tramps"--are
there still, surrounded by a protective fence.

[Illustration: The "Sir John Falstaff" Inn, Gad's Hill.]

We have but little time to notice the "Falstaff," for our admiring gaze
is presently fixed on Gad's Hill Place itself, the house in which
Dickens resided happily--albeit trouble came to him as to most
men--from the year 1856 till his death in 1870. Everybody knows the
story of how, as a little boy, he