To cut our ghost story short, without adding another chapter, Mr. Aveling, on looking into the dark chasm by the meagre light of the lowered candle, beheld, to his amazement, the reflection of his own face in the water of a large cistern underneath the staircase, the house having formerly been supplied from the "large brewery" a short distance off. The unearthly noise was no doubt caused by air in the pipes, through which the water rushed when suddenly turned on by the brewers, who were working late at night. In _Great Expectations_ it is stated that:--"The brewery buildings had a little lane of communication with it" [the courtyard of Satis House], "and the wooden gates of that lane stood open" [at the time of Pip's first visit, when Estella showed him over the premises], "and all the brewery beyond stood open, away to the high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused. The cold wind seemed to blow colder there, than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea." FOOTNOTES: [4] Mr. Aveling subsequently informed me that the vessel in which the king took his departure continued to be used in the Royal Navy for many years as a lighter--its name being altered to the "Royal Escape." Afterwards it was used as a watch-vessel in the Coastguard service at Chatham, and was eventually broken up at Sheerness Dockyard so recently as 1876. [5] "A Perambulation of Kent: Conteining the Description, Hystorie, and Customes of that Shire. Written in the yeere 1570 by William Lambarde of Lincoln's Inne Gent." CHAPTER IV. ROCHESTER CASTLE. "I took up my hat, and went out, climbed to the top of the old Castle, and looked over the windy hills that slope down to the Medway."--_The Seven Poor Travellers._ TO the lover of Dickens, both the Castle and Cathedral of Rochester appeal with almost equal interest. The Castle, however, which stands on an eminence on the right bank of the river Medway, close to the bridge, claims prior attention, and a few lines must therefore be devoted to an epitome of its history in the ante-Pickwickian days. Tradition says that the first castle was erected by command of Julius Caesar, when Cassivelaunus was Governor of Britain, "in order to awe the Britons." It was called the "Castle of the Medway," or "the Kentishmen's Castle," and it seems, with other antagonisms, to have awed the unfortunate Britons pretty effectively, for it lasted until decay and dissolution came to it and to them, as to all things. It was replaced by a new castle built by Hrofe (509), which in its turn succumbed to the ravages of time. [Illustration: The Castle from Rochester Bridge]