go Life and Times of " The Druid!' 



fairly cast in his lot with the mahl-stick. I 

 thought of the saying as, under the guidance 

 of 'Sailor Jack,' another of the North Road 

 men who had followed Mr. Herring's for- 

 tunes, and then looked after his Arabs, we 

 bowled over the three miles from Tonbridge 

 to Meopham Park. Even in the tender sun- 

 shine of a May morning, the hop fields with 

 their countless wigwams of poles wore a very 

 dreary air, and made us long for the autumn, 

 when their rich green clusters will once more 

 claim to be Barley Brides. The carriage- 

 drive shaded by oaks with large fantastic 

 arms, which would have made Parson Gilpin 

 of the New Forest gaze for a moment and 

 then rush for relief to his pencil, is kept in 

 faultless ' Quicksilver mail order,' as a 

 memento of the old whip days. Scarcely a 

 wheel has touched it since Charles Herring 

 was borne over it in 1856 to his grave, and 

 it is really sacred to his memory. And well 

 it may be, as a better son or a more skilful 

 lover of art for his years never passed to his 

 rest. White and red rosebuds just bursting 

 into bloom, clustered round the verandah, 

 and from it the outline of the pleasant woods 

 of Penshurst, which 



