A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land

Excerpt: ...last illness; it was a builder in Strood who executed most of the alterations and repairs at Gad's Hill Place; it was a Strood contractor who gave him the souvenir of old Rochester Bridge; it was at Strood that an eminent local scientist lived, who was incidentally, but very importantly, associated with him in the movement connected with the Guild of Literature and Art; and it was at a quiet roadside inn at Strood that he sometimes called to refresh himself after one of those long walks, alone or with friends, for which he was famous. Let us reverse the order of the above, and give a recollection from the last-mentioned. The Crispin and Crispianus is a very old-fashioned inn, which stands on the north side of the London road just out of Strood, and was, as we were informed, erected some centuries ago. It is a long building, of brick below, with an overhanging upper floor and weather-boarded front, surmounted by a single dormer window. The sanded floor of the common parlour is, as the saying goes, as clean as a new pin. Round the room is a settle terminating with arms at each side of the door, which is opposite the fireplace. Mrs. Masters, the cheerful and obliging landlady, who has lived here thirty years, describes Dickens to us (as we sit in the seat he used now and then to occupy), when on one of his walks, as habited in low shoes not over-well mended, loose large check-patterned trousers that sometimes got entangled in the shoes when walking, a brown coat thrown open, sometimes without waistcoat, a belt instead of braces, a necktie which now and then got round towards his ear, and a large-brimmed felt hat, similar to an 218 American's, set well at the back of his head. In his hand he carried by the middle an umbrella, which he was in the habit of constantly swinging, and if he had dogs (a not unfrequent occurrence), he had a small whip as well. He walked in the middle of the road at a rapid pace, upright, but with his eyes cast down as if...