Walking away and leaving Canterbury behind us forever, we came again into the voiceless streets, past a “very old house bulging out over the road, ... quite spotless in its cleanliness, the old-fashioned brass knocker on the low, arched door ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkling like a star,” the very house, perhaps, “with angles and corners and carvings and mouldings,” where David Copperfield was sent to school.  We were turned off with a laughing reply, when we ventured to accuse this particular house of being the one, and were told there were several that “would do”; which was quite true, for nothing could be more quaint, more satisfactory to all, from the lovers of Chaucer to the lovers of Dickens, than this same city of Canterbury.  The sun had set as we rattled noisily out of the ancient place that afternoon, and along the high road, which was quite novel in its evening aspect.  There was no lingering now; on and on we went, the postilions flying up and down on the backs of their 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.