The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-18

And that old building near to the Nuns
House," with the stonc tablet and inscription
over the door, is Watts Charity, known to
you in the s'Seven Poor Travellers" Why,
''Cloisterham" teens with dear old friends: it
is the mossgrown well from which he drew
the sacred truths of much that is simple,
homely, and honest in his writings.
Even 'old Weller" might have lived here
once, for the man whom you engage to drive
you to Gadshill looks so wonderfully like him
you are tempted to ask his name. "The
Old George, "Crown and Anchor, and other
signs, familiar in most English towns, are more
familiar here by reason OF his mention. You
select the paths you think he would have
chosen, and they lead you through the oldest
wipdings Of the choicest of old cties you
make the circuit of the castle walls and enter
its gates.
Rochester Castle Perhaps the grand
est ruin in Old England, mentioned in
King Johns time as an ancient struc-
ture then. The moat is now kitchen
garden; apricot and fig trees dispute
with ivy possession of the crumbling walls,
and the ruin looks grimly down on beds of
careful cultivation; You penetrate the wind
ing passages and stairways, the halls, corri-
dors and dungeons and ascend, by the aid
of ropes nailed to the walls, the stone steps
of the castle towers. From the highest of
these you look down on the city--''its ruined
habitatlons and sanctuaries of the dead; its
moss-softened red-tiled roofs and brick
houses of the living; its river winding down
from the mist on the horizon, as if that were
its source"
And, looking out from this grand old ruin
upon the ruin that surrounds it. musing on
the words above, in which he pictured "Clois-
terham" SO deftly, it does not need much
stretch of fancy to believe that the shadow of
his form still rests upon the time-bleached
castle wall--that the echoes of his voice still
linger on the silent summer air.
The road from Rochester to Higham-on-
the-Hill forms part of the old highroad from
Canterbury to London Every foot of it is
holy ground, for by this road the pilgrims
journeyed centuries ago. The shrine you
seek, sadder pilgrim than they, is built upon
Gadshill, where Ned Poins and Prince Hal
conjured visions to the doughty knight of
thirteen men in buckram, and the ''Falstaff
Arms" opposite commentaries the revel.
You give little thought to associations with
the past: yon quaint brick building, from
which as it seems but yesterday he went the
silent road into which all earthly pilgrimages
merge, some sooner, and some later, absorbs
your feelings and enchains your thoughts.
Sixteen years back it was the vicarage of
Higham, and how its late tenant, as boy,
admired it, he has oddly told rs in his Gun
commercial Traveller
$50 smooth was the old high-road and so
fresh were the horses, and SO fast went I,
that it was midway between Gravesend and
Rochester when 1 noticed by the wayside
very queer small boy
Halo" said I; where do you liver
"'At Chatham, says he.
"'What do you do there p says 1.
"'I go to school, says he.
II took him up in moment, and we
went on. Presently the very queer small boy
says
''This is Gadshill we are coming to, where
Falstaff went out to rob those travellers, and
ran away.
"'You know something about Falstaff p
saidI.
"'Al about him, said the very queer small
boy. Il am old Il am nine), and I read all
sorts of books But do let us stop at the top
of the hill, please, and look at the house
there
"'You admire that house,? said I.
Bless you, sir I! said the very queer small
boy, when 1 was not more than half as old as
nine it used to be q treat fer me to be
brought to look at it. And now am nine 1
come by myself to look at it. And ever since
1 can recollect, my father, seeing me so fond
of it, has often said to me-"If you were to
be very persevering and work hard, you
might some day come to live in it.
Though that's impossible, said the very
queer small boy, drawing low breath, and
staring at the house with all his might.
81 was rather amazed to be told this by the
very queer small boy, for that house happens
to be my home, and have reason to believe
what he said was true.
1t became his home through the mere acci-
dent of his hearing at dinner party, that the
old vicarage was suddenly for sale. The din
ner was left untasted, the bargain made, and
Gadshill Place became as immortal as STRAIT
ford -on-Avon. The grounds had been en-
bellished from his own designs, but the
house would seem to have been left untouched
except by time. There is tunnel under the
high-road connecting the two gardens, and
the noble cedars upon either side stand like
watchers at grave and mourn the nobler
dead. Ivy and the Virginia creeper overhang
the walls and the arched entrance to the tun-
mel, and red geraniums dot the velvet lawn
and crowd the windows in rich profusion.
On the couch by the bay window in the
dining-room he breathed his last too weak
to be moved to the bed that had been
brought down from his chamber. His por-
trait by Maclise ESQ lately gone before him),
and other pictures by Frith Cameron, Stan
field, Cattermole, Frank and Marcus Stone,
etc., many representing characters of
his own creation-hang on the walls, while in
the halls and the sleeping-rooms above stairs
lie the many books that have been crowded
out of his well-stocked library, rich in trea-
sures, chief Of which are the bound manu-
scripts of his various works, interlined with
his own corrections. The library doors
are covered over with imitation covers of
oddIworks, christened in merry moments by
himself and kindred spirits: OattS Li0es, in
nine volumes; Life Gs Zimmerman, by him
self Catalogues Of Statues to the Duke Of
Wellington, 20 large volumes; The World,