On one occasion our informant remembers a stoppage of the train in Higham tunnel, which caused some consternation to the passengers, as no explanation of the delay was forthcoming from any of the railway officials. The station-master coming up at the time, Dickens remarked--"Ah! an unwilling witness, Mr. Wood." Mr. Cobb mentioned that Miss Hogarth, Dickens's sister-in-law, was a great favourite in the neighbourhood, from her kindness and thoughtfulness for all with whom she came in contact, and especially the poor of Higham. FOOTNOTES: [35] Speaking of Hoo, Lambarde says (1570)--"Hoh in the old English signifieth sorrow or sickness, wherewith the Inhabitants of that unwholesome Hundred be very much exercised[!]." [36] Lambarde says, "The Town [of Cliffe at Hoo] is large, and hath hitherto a great Parish Church: and (as I have been told) many of the houses were casually burned (about the same time that the Emperor _Charles_ came into this Realme to visite King _Henry_ the eight), of which hurt it was never thorowly cured." CHAPTER XIII. COBHAM PARK AND HALL, THE LEATHER BOTTLE, SHORNE, CHALK, AND THE DOVER ROAD. "It's a place you may well be fond of and attached to, for it's the prettiest spot in all the country round."--_The Village Coquettes._ "The last soft light of the setting sun had fallen on the earth, casting a rich glow on the yellow corn sheaves, and lengthening the shadows of the orchard trees."--_The Pickwick Papers._ WE reserve this, our last long tramp in "Dickens-Land," for the Friday before our departure. Mrs. Perugini, the novelist's second daughter, had recently told us that this was the most beautiful of all the beautiful parts of Kent, and so indeed it proves to be. Its sylvan scenery is truly unique. Mr. Charles Dickens the younger, in his valuable annotated Jubilee edition of _Pickwick_, has included this note relating to Cobham:-- "As all the world knows, the neighbourhood of Rochester was dear to Charles Dickens. There it is that Gad's Hill Place stands, the house to which, as 'a queer, small boy,' he looked forward as the possible reward of an industrious career, and in which he passed the later years of his life; and near Rochester, still approached by the 'delightful walk' here described, is Cobham, one of the most charming villages in that part of Kent. Down the lanes, and through the park to Cobham, was always a favourite walk with Charles Dickens; and he never wearied of acting as _cicerone_ to his guests to its fine church and the quaint almshouses with the disused refectory behind it."