"It was gone. The two beautiful hawthorn-trees, the hedge, the turf, and all those buttercups 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 haycock), 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. Snodgrass, as second, is punctuality itself. "'We are in excellent time,' said Mr. Snodgrass, 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.