MRS. LYNN LINTON 91 



over the surrounding country that is really fine, and 

 the road goes down, too, towards Strood, in a manner 

 eminently picturesque. The story is well known of 

 how, even when but a " queer small boy," Dickens 

 always had a great desire to, some day, be the owner 

 of the place, and how his father, who would take him 

 jiast here on country walks from Chatham, told him 

 that if he " were to be very persevering, and were to 

 work hard," he might some day come to live in it ; 

 but it is not equally a matter of common knowledge 

 that the house had been also the object of an equal 

 affection, years before, to the Reverend Mr. Lynn, 

 father of Mrs. Lynn Linton, who tells us how her early 

 years were spent here, and how, when her father died, 

 it was she who sold the estate to the novelist. She 

 gives also a most picturesque account of Gad's Hill in 

 those times. The coaches were still running when 

 Mrs. Lynn Linton, as a girl, lived here. 



" Gad's Hill House stands a little way back from the 

 road. The grand highway between London and 

 Dover, not to speak of betAveen Gravesend and 

 Rochester, it was as gay as an approach to a metropolis. 

 Ninety-two public coaches and pleasure-vans used to 

 pass in the day, not counting the private carriages of 

 the grandees posting luxuriously to Dover for Paris and 

 the grand tour. Soldiers marching or riding to or from 

 Chatham and Gravesend, to embark for India, or on 

 their return journey home ; ships' companies paid off 

 that morning, and cruising past the gates, shouting and 

 singing and comporting themselves in a generally 

 terrifying manner, being, for the most part, half-seas 

 over, and a trifle beyond ; gipsies and travelling 

 tinkers ; sturdy beggars with stumps and crutches ; 

 Savoyards with white mice, and organ-men with a 

 wonderful wax doll, two-headed and superbly dressed, 

 in front of their machines ; chimney-sweepers, with a 

 couple of shivering, little, half-naked climbing boys 

 carrying their bags and brushes ; and costermongers, 

 whose small, flat carts were drawn by big dogs, were 



