DUNKIRK 183 



men who say the foundations of the building gave way- 

 several times before the walls could be commenced 

 properly, declare that his ghost haunted the place. 

 But, whatever else these doings teach, they teach us that 

 a spirit of selfishness, of neglect, both on the part of 

 Church and State, brings its inevitable retribution. 

 The punishment fell then on these ignorant hinds ; 

 what should be the punishment in the hereafter of 

 those who were morally responsible for the shedding 

 of their blood ? 



XXXIII 



Dunkirk was anciently a common in the Forest of 

 Blean, and was a veritable Alsatia, the resort of 

 lawless men who squatted here because it was not 

 within any known jurisdiction. Hasted, in his 

 History of Kent, says houses were built here and 

 " inhabited by low persons of suspicious character, this 

 being a place exempt from the jurisdiction of either 

 hundred or parish, as in a free port, which receives all 

 who enter it, without distinction. The whole district 

 from hence gained the name of ' Dunkirk.' " This part 

 of the road, being in neither hundred or parish, was 

 neglected and left in a ruinous state until nearly the 

 close of the eighteenth century. 



At Dunkirk, on passing the " Gate " inn, with its sign 

 of a five-barred field-gate hanging over the road, the 

 traveller obtains his first glimpse of Canterbury 

 Cathedral, the Bell Harr}^ tower rising grey above 

 the green valley of the Stour. Now the road goes 

 downwards towards Harbledown in a succession of 

 switchback u])s and downs that, noticeable enough 

 for remark even at this lapse of time, must have 

 been much more marked in Chaucer's day. Here 

 the pilgrims would see the Cathedral faintly from 

 the crest of a hillock, losing it for a few minutes as 

 they rode or tramped down the succeeding declivity, 



