A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land Part 22

Tupman, and the Pickwickians make the acquaintance of old Wardle and his hospitable family from Dingley Dell, by whom they are heartily entertained, and from whom they receive a warm invitation to visit Manor Farm on the morrow.

There is a fine view of Chatham and Rochester from the fields round Fort Pitt, and on a bright sunny morning the air coming over from the Kentish Hills is most refres.h.i.+ng, very different indeed to what it was on a certain evening in Mr. Winkle's life, when "a melancholy wind sounded through the deserted fields like a giant whistling for his house-dog."

We ramble about for an hour or more, and in imagination call up the pleasant times which Charles d.i.c.kens, as a boy, spent here.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fort Pitt, Chatham.]

Almost every inch of the ground must have been gone over by him. What a delightful "playing-field" this and the neighbouring meadows must have been to him and his young companions, before the railway and the builder took possession of some of the lower portions of the hill which forms the base of Fort Pitt. "Here," says Mr. Langton, "is the place where the schools of Rochester and Chatham used to meet to settle their differences, and to contend in the more friendly rivalry of cricket,"

and no doubt d.i.c.kens frequently played when "Joe Specks" in Dullborough "kept wicket." In after life the memory of the past came back to d.i.c.kens with all its freshness, when he again visited the neighbourhood as the _Uncommercial Traveller_ in "Dullborough":--

"With this tender remembrance upon me" [that of leaving Chatham as a boy], "I was cavalierly shunted back into Dullborough the other day, by train. My ticket had been previously collected, like my taxes, and my s.h.i.+ning new portmanteau had had a great plaster stuck upon it, and I had been defied by Act of Parliament to offer an objection to anything that was done to it, or me, under a penalty of not less than forty s.h.i.+llings or more than five pounds, compoundable for a term of imprisonment. When I had sent my disfigured property on to the hotel, I began to look about me; and the first discovery I made, was, that the Station had swallowed up the playing-field.

"It was gone. The two beautiful hawthorn-trees, the hedge, the turf, and all those b.u.t.tercups and daisies, had given place to the stoniest of jolting roads; while, beyond the Station, an ugly dark monster of a tunnel kept its jaws open, as if it had swallowed them and were ravenous for more destruction. The coach that had carried me away, was melodiously called Timpson's Blue-eyed Maid, and belonged to Timpson, at the coach-office up street; the locomotive engine that had brought me back was called severely No. 97, and belonged to S.E.R., and was spitting ashes and hot-water over the blighted ground.

"When I had been let out at the platform-door, like a prisoner whom his turnkey grudgingly released, I looked in again over the low wall, at the scene of departed glories. Here, in the haymaking time, had I been delivered from the dungeons of Seringapatam, an immense pile (of hayc.o.c.k), by my countrymen, the victorious British (boy next door and his two cousins), and had been recognized with ecstasy by my affianced one (Miss Green), who had come all the way from England (second house in the terrace) to ransom me, and marry me."

Fort Pitt must have had considerable attractions in Mr. Pickwick's time, as it would appear that it was visited by him and his friends on the first day of their arrival at Rochester. Lieutenant Tappleton (Dr.

Slammer's second), when presenting the challenge for the duel, thus speaks to Mr. Winkle in the second chapter of _Pickwick_:--

"'You know Fort Pitt?'

"'Yes; I saw it yesterday.'

"'If you will take the trouble to turn into the field which borders the trench, take the foot-path to the left, when you arrive at an angle of the fortification; and keep straight on till you see me; I will precede you to a secluded place, where the affair can be conducted without fear of interruption.'

"'_Fear_ of interruption!' thought Mr. Winkle."

Everybody remembers how the meeting took place on Fort Pitt. Mr. Winkle, attended by his friend Mr. Snodgra.s.s, as second, is punctuality itself.

"'We are in excellent time,' said Mr. Snodgra.s.s, as they climbed the fence of the first field; 'the sun is just going down.' Mr. Winkle looked up at the declining orb, and painfully thought of the probability of his 'going down' himself, before long."

Presently the officer appears, "the gentleman in the blue cloak," and "slightly beckoning with his hand to the two friends, they follow him for a little distance," and after climbing a paling and scaling a hedge, enter a secluded field.

Dr. Slammer is already there with his friend Dr. Payne,--Dr. Payne of the 43rd, "the man with the camp-stool."

The arrangements proceed, when suddenly a check is experienced.

"'What's all this?' said Dr. Slammer, as his friend and Mr. Snodgra.s.s came running up.--'That's not the man.'

"'Not the man!' said Dr. Slammer's second.

"'Not the man!' said Mr. Snodgra.s.s.

"'Not the man!' said the gentleman with the camp-stool in his hand.

"'Certainly not,' replied the little doctor.

'That's not the person who insulted me last night.'

"'Very extraordinary!' exclaimed the officer.

"'Very,' said the gentleman with the camp-stool."

Mutual explanations follow, and, notwithstanding the temporary dissatisfaction of Dr. Payne, Mr. Winkle comes out like a trump--defends the honour of the Pickwick Club and its uniform, and wins the admiration of Dr. Slammer.

"'My dear sir,' said the good-humoured little doctor, advancing with extended hand, 'I honour your gallantry. Permit me to say, Sir, that I highly admire your conduct, and extremely regret having caused you the inconvenience of this meeting, to no purpose.'

"'I beg you won't mention it, Sir,' said Mr.

Winkle.

"'I shall feel proud of your acquaintance, Sir,'

said the little doctor.

"'It will afford me the greatest pleasure to know you, Sir,' replied Mr. Winkle.

"Thereupon the doctor and Mr. Winkle shook hands, and then Mr. Winkle and Lieutenant Tappleton (the doctor's second), and then Mr. Winkle and the man with the camp-stool, and finally Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgra.s.s: the last-named gentleman in an excess of admiration at the n.o.ble conduct of his heroic friend.

"'I think we may adjourn,' said Lieutenant Tappleton.

"'Certainly,' added the doctor."

We ourselves also adjourn, taking with us many pleasant memories of Chatham and Fort Pitt, and of the period relating to "the childhood and youth of Charles d.i.c.kens."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BIRTHPLACE OF CHARLES d.i.c.kENS,

387 Mile End Terrace, Commercial Road, Landport.]

No tramp in "d.i.c.kens-Land" can possibly be complete without a visit to the birthplace of the great novelist, and on another occasion we therefore devote a day to Portsea, Hants. A fast train from Victoria by the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway takes us to Portsmouth Town, the nearest station, which is about half a mile from Commercial Road, and a tram-car puts us down at the door. We immediately recognize the house from the picture in Mr. Langton's book, but the first impression is that the ill.u.s.tration scarcely does justice to it. From the picture it appears to us to be a very ordinary house in a row, and to be situated rather low in a crowded and not over respectable neighbourhood. Nothing of the kind. The house, No. 387, Mile End Terrace, Commercial Road, Landport, where the parents of Charles d.i.c.kens resided before they removed to another part of Portsea, and subsequently went to live at Chatham, and where the future genius first saw light, was eighty years ago quite in a rural neighbourhood; and in those days must have been considered rather a genteel residence for a family of moderate means in the middle cla.s.s. Even now, with the pressure which always attends the development of large towns, and their extension on the border-land of green country by the frequent conversion of dwelling-houses into shops, or the intrusion of shops where dwelling-houses are, this residence has escaped and remains unchanged to this day.

There is another point of real importance to notice. Mr. Langton, referring to this house, says:--"The engraving shows the little fore-court or front garden, with the low kitchen window of the house, whence the movements of Charles [who is presumably represented in the engraving by the figure of a boy about two or three years old, with curly locks, dressed in a smart frock, and having a large ball in his right hand], attended by his dear little sister f.a.n.n.y, could be overlooked."[24] Very pretty indeed, but alas! I am afraid, purely imaginary, considering, as will hereafter appear, that Charles was a baby in arms, aged about four months and sixteen days, when his parents quitted the house in which he was born.

The house is now, and has been for many years, occupied by Miss Sarah Pearce, the surviving daughter of Mr. John d.i.c.kens's landlord, her sisters, who formerly lived with her, being all dead. It stands high on the west side of a good broad road, opposite an old-fas.h.i.+oned villa called Angus House, in the midst of well-trimmed grounds, and the situation is very open, pleasant, and cheerful. It is red-brick built, has a railing in front, and is approached by a little entrance-gate opening on to a lawn, whereon there are a few flower-beds; a hedge divides the fore-court from the next house,[25] and a few steps guarded by a handrail lead to the front door. It is a single-fronted, eight-roomed house, having two underground kitchens, two floors above, and a single dormer window high up in the sloping red-tiled roof. As is usual with old-fas.h.i.+oned houses of this type, the shutters to the lower windows are outside. Both the front and back parlours on the ground floor are very cheerful, cosy little rooms (in one of them we are glad to see a portrait of the novelist), and the view from the back parlour looking down into the well-kept garden, which abuts on other gardens, is very pretty, marred only by a large gasometer in the distance, which could hardly have been erected in young Charles d.i.c.kens's earliest days.

In the garden we notice a lovely specimen of the _Lavatera arborea_, or tree-mallow, covered with hundreds of white and purple blossoms. It is a rarity to see such a handsome, well-grown tree, standing nearly eight feet high, and it is not unlikely, from the luxuriance of its growth, that it existed in Charles d.i.c.kens's infancy. From the pleasant surroundings of the place generally, and from the fact that flowers are much grown in the neighbourhood (especially roses), it is more than probable that d.i.c.kens's love for flowers was early developed by these a.s.sociations. The road leads to Cosham, and to the picturesque old ruin of Porchester Castle, a nice walk from the town of Portsmouth, and probably often traversed by d.i.c.kens, his sister, and his nurse.

Mr. Langton states that "it is said in after years Charles d.i.c.kens could remember places and things at Portsmouth that he had not seen since he was an infant of little more than two years old (he left Portsmouth when he was only four or five), and there is no doubt whatever that many of the earliest reminiscences of _David Copperfield_ were also tender childish memories of his own infancy at this place."

Mr. William Pearce, solicitor of Portsea, son of the former landlord, and brother of Miss Sarah Pearce, the present occupant, has been kind enough to supply the following interesting information respecting No.

387, Mile End Terrace:--

"The celebrated novelist was born in the front bedroom of the above house, which my sisters many years ago converted into a drawing-room, and it is still used as such.

"Mr. John d.i.c.kens, the father of the novelist, and his wife came to reside in the house directly after they were married. Mr. John d.i.c.kens rented the house of my father at 35 a-year, from the 24th June, 1808, until the 24th June, 1812, when he quitted, and moved into Hawke Street, in the town of Portsea. Miss f.a.n.n.y d.i.c.kens, the novelist's sister, was the first child born in the house, and then the novelist.

"I was born on the 22nd February, 1814, and have often heard my mother say that Mr. Gardner, the surgeon, and Mrs. Purkis, the monthly nurse (both of whom attended my mother with me and her six other children), attended Mrs. d.i.c.kens with her two children, f.a.n.n.y and Charles, who were both born in the above house; besides this, Mrs. Purkis has often called on my sisters at the house in question, and alluded to the above circ.u.mstances.

[Ill.u.s.tration: St. Mary's Church, Portsea.]

"Mr. Cobb (whom I recollect), a fellow-clerk of Mr. John d.i.c.kens in the pay-office in the Portsmouth Dockyard, rented the same house of my father after Mr. John d.i.c.kens left, and often alluded to the many happy hours he spent in it while Mr. d.i.c.kens resided there."