The Dover Road, after leaving Canterbury, loses very much of that religious character, picturesquely varied with robbery and murder, which is its chiefest feature between Southwark and the Shrine of Saint Thomas; for, although many foreign pilgrims landed at Dover to proceed to the place where the martyr lay, encased in gold and jewels, their number was nothing to be compared with that of the crowds who came into Canterbury from London, or along the Pilgrims' Road from the West Country; and consequently the wayside shrines and oratories were fewer. The greater part of the sixteen miles between Canterbury and Dover is bare and exposed downs, with here and there a little village nestling, sheltered from the bleak winds, in deep valleys; but the first two miles, between the city and the coast, are now becoming gay with the geranium-beds, the lawns and gardens of Canterbury villadom. [Illustration: WILLIAM CLEMENTS.] At the first milestone is Gutteridge Gate, where the old toll-house remains beside the "Gate" inn, and where bacchanalian countrymen gather on Sunday evenings in summer, drinking pots of ale as the sun goes down, and recalling to the artistic passer-by Teniers' pictures of boors, as they shout and bang the wooden tables and benches with their pewter pots. Looking back at such a time down the long, straight road ascending from Canterbury, there come many jingling sons of Mars, each man with his adoring young woman, and sometimes one on either arm, for there is great competition for these gallant Hussars, Lancers, and Dragoons among the Canterbury fair ones; and "unappropriated blessings" of a rank in life that does not permit of "walking out" with mere troopers sit at windows commanding the road, sighing for that the conventions of the age do not permit them to "stoop to conquer" the conquerors of their fluttering hearts. "I could worship that man," says the Fairy Queen in _Iolanthe_, gazing admiringly upon "Private Willis of the Grenadier Guards"; and how much more worshipful than a foot-soldier are the "cavalry chaps" of the Canterbury depot! [Sidenote: GUTTERIDGE GATE]