TONG 163 



Aiitholiii not have his skulls miraculously multiplied 

 if they had a mind to it ; and if Saint Frideswyde 

 could be proved to have been possessed of half a dozen 

 arms, was it not for the good, if not of the church, at 

 least of the clergy, that it should be so ? And so, it is 

 to be hoped that the Vicar and the Hermit, between 

 them, did well ; and also it is to be hoped that the 

 Hermit took more advantage, for washing purposes, of 

 the little stream which here also flowed across the 

 roadway than his brethren were wont to do. 



The road between Ospringe and Sittingbourne was 

 in those days very lonely, and lonely it still remains, 

 for the settlements of Bapchild, Radfield, and Green- 

 street are but dull and dishevelled collections of tiny 

 shops and cottages, with here and there a slumberous 

 old inn or whitewashed farmhouse. The railway to 

 Dover runs on the left hand, within sight of the 

 highway, through the beautiful cherry-orchards and 

 the hop-gardens, and the land slopes gently down to the 

 levels of Teynham and the fertile though ague-stricken 

 marshes of the Swale ; that part of Kent where, 

 according to the old local saying, there is " wealth 

 Avithout health " ; significantly alluded to in the 

 rhyme — 



He that would not live long, 



Let him live at Murston, Teynham, or Tong. 



Tong Castle, where Rowena " drank hael " to King 

 Vortigern and captivated that very susceptible but 

 unpatriotic monarch ; the scene also of the treacherous 

 murder by Hengist and his men of three hundred 

 British nobles, is represented now only by a grassy 

 mound. Here we are in the centre of the hop-growing 

 districts, and the road begins to be bordered with 

 hop-gardens, bare in autumn and Avinter, except for 

 the great stacks of poles ; but beautiful in spring 

 and summer with the climbing bine, planted in long 

 alleys in which women and children work in the long 

 summer days, weeding and tying up the hops, and 

 hanging up the wind-screens called '' lews." For the 



