It is wholly unrestored; just enough care has been bestowed to prevent its utter destruction, but otherwise it stands as it has stood and crumbled from year to year.  We climbed painfully up to the highest steep of its loftiest tower, and looked down on the wonderful scene spread out in the glory of a summer sunset.  Below, a clear trickling stream flowed and tinkled as it has done since the rope was first lowered in the year 800 to bring the bucket up over the worn stones which still remain to attest the fact.  How happy Dickens was in the beauty of that scene!  What delight he took in rebuilding the old place, with every legend of which he proved himself familiar, and repeopling it out of the storehouse of his fancy.  “Here was the kitchen, and there the dining-hall!  How frightfully dark they must have been in those days, with such small slits for windows, and the fireplaces without chimneys!  There were the galleries; this is one of the four towers; the others, you will understand, corresponded with this; and now, if you’re not dizzy, we will come out on the battlements for the view!” Up we went, of course, following our cheery leader until we stood among the topmost wall-flowers, which were waving yellow and sweet in the sunset air.  East and west, north and south, our eyes traversed the beautiful garden land of Kent, the land beloved of poets through the centuries.  Below lay the city of Rochester on one hand, and in the heart of it an old inn where a carrier was even then getting out, or putting in, horses and wagon for the night.  A procession, with banners and music, was moving slowly by the tavern, and the quaint costumes in which the men were dressed suggested days long past, when far other scenes were going forward in this locality.  It was almost like a pageant marching out of antiquity for our delectation.  Our master of ceremonies revelled that day in repeopling the queer old streets down into which we were looking from our charming elevation.  His delightful fancy seemed especially alert on that occasion, and we lived over again with him many a chapter in the history of Rochester, full of interest to those of us who had come from a land where all is new and comparatively barren of romance.

Below, on the other side, was the river Medway, from whose depths the castle once rose steeply.  Now the debris and perhaps also a slight swerving of the river from its old course have left a rough margin, over which it would not be difficult to make an ascent.  Rochester Bridge, too, is here, and the “windy hills” in the distance; and again, on the other hand, Chatham, and beyond, the Thames, with the sunset tingeing the many-colored sails.  We were not easily persuaded to descend from our picturesque vantage-ground; but the master’s hand led us gently on from point to point, until we found ourselves, before we were aware, on the grassy slope outside the castle wall.  Besides, there was the cathedral to be visited, and the tomb of Richard Watts, “with the effigy of worthy Master Richard starting out of it like a ship’s figurehead.”