we have glimpses of "fields," "parks," and leafy lanes, with here and
there picturesque camps of gypsies or of peripatetic rascals "goin'
a-hoppin.'" From wretched Higham a walk of half an hour among orchards
and between hedges of wild-rose and honeysuckle brings us to the hill
which Shakespeare and Dickens have made classic ground, and soon we see,
above the tree tops, the glittering vane which surmounted the home of
the world's greatest novelist.

The name Gad's (Vagabond's) Hill is a survival of the time when the
depredations of highwaymen upon "pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich
offerings and traders riding to London with fat purses" gave to this
spot the ill repute it had in Shakespeare's day; it was here he located
Falstaff's great exploit. The tuft of evergreens which crowns the hill
about Dickens' retreat is the remnant of thick woods once closely
bordering the highway, in which the "men in buckram" lay concealed, and
the robbery of the Franklin was committed in front of the spot where the
Dickens house stands. By this road passed Chaucer, who had property near
by, gathering from the pilgrims his "Canterbury Tales." In all time to
come the great master of romance who came here to live and die will be
worthily associated with Shakespeare and Chaucer in the renown of
Gad's Hill.

In becoming possessor of this place Dickens realized a dream of his
boyhood and ambition of his life. In one of his travelers' sketches he
introduces a "queer small boy" (himself) gazing at Gad's Hill House and
predicting his future ownership, which the author finds annoying
"because it happens to be my house and I believe what he said was true."
When at last the place was for sale, Dickens did not wait to examine it;
he never was inside the house until he went to direct its repair.
Eighteen hundred pounds was the price; a thousand more were expended for