This was the beginning of the famous year. I say famous because, to me and to certain others, it was certainly a year eventful, while to the people of the town and the county round it was the year of the spa which began, ran a brief course, and terminated, all in one summer.
Let me therefore speak for a little about the place where these things happened. It is not a mushroom or upstart town of yesterday but on the other hand a town of venerable antiquity with many traditions which may be read in books by the curious. It is important on account of its trade though it is said that in former days its importance was much greater.
I have sailed over many seas: I have put in at many ports: I have taken in cargoes of many countries—the ways of sailors I have found much the same everywhere. And as for the food and the drink and the buildings I say that Lynn is behind none. Certainly the port of London whether at Wapping or at Limehouse or Shadwell cannot show anything so fine as the market place of Lynn or St. Margaret's church or our customhouse. Nor have I found anywhere, people more civil of speech and more obliging and well disposed, than in my own town; in which, apart from the sailors and their quarters, the merchants and shipowners are substantial: trade is always brisk: the port is always lively: continually there is a coming and a going: sometimes, week after week, one ship arrives and another ship puts out: the yards are always busy: the hammer and the anvil resound all day long: carpenters, rope makers, boat builders, block makers, sail makers, all the people wanted to fit out a ship—they say that a ship is like a woman, in always wanting something—are at work without intermission all the year round from five in the morning till eight in the evening. They stand at good wages: they live well: they dress warm: they drink of the best. It is a city of great plenty. Wine there is of the most generous, to be had at reasonable price—have I not myself brought home cargoes from Lisbon of Spanish and Portuguese—strong and heady—rich and sweet; and from Bordeaux of right claret? All the things that come from abroad are here in abundance, brought hither by our ships and distributed by our barges up the river and its tributaries through eight countries at least, serving the towns of Peterborough, Ely, Stamford, Bedford, St. Ives, Huntingdon, St. Neots, Northampton, Cambridge, Bury St. Edmund's, and Thetford. We send them not only wine but also coals (which come to us, sea-borne, from Newcastle), deal and timber from Norway and the Baltic, iron and implements; sugar, lemons, spices, tea (but there is little of that infusion taken in the county), turpentine, and I know not what: and we receive for export wheat, barley, oats and grain of all kinds.
In other places you may hear lamentations that certain imported luxuries have given out: the lemons will fail so that the punch is spoiled: or the nutmegs give out—which is a misfortune for the pudding: or the foreign wine has been all consumed. Our cellars and our warehouses, however, are always full, there is always wine of every kind: there are always stores of everything that the cook can want for his most splendid banquet.
Nor are we less fortunate in our food. There is excellent mutton fattened in the Marshland: the bacon of Norfolk is famous: there are no geese like the geese of the fens—they are kept in farmhouses, each in its own hutch, and all driven out to feed in the fens and the ditches of the fens. Every day you may see the boy they call the gozzard driving them out in the morning and bringing them home in the evening. Then, since all the country on the west side is lowland reclaimed from the sea, it is, like all such land, full of ponds and haunted by starlings and ducks, widgeon, teal and other wild birds innumerable, which are shot, decoyed, and caught in great numbers. Add to this that the reclaimed land is most fertile and yields abundantly of wheat and barley, fruit and vegetables: and that fish are found in plenty in the Wash and outside and you will own that the town is a kind of promised land, where everything that the heart of man can desire is plentiful and cheap and where the better sort are rich and comfortable and the baser sort are in good case and contented.
Another circumstance, which certain scholars consider fortunate for Lynn, is that the modern town abounds with ancient buildings, walls, towers, arches, churches, gateways, fragments which proclaim its antiquity and speak of its former importance. You think, perhaps, that a plain and simple sea captain has no business to know anything about matters which concern scholars. That is a reasonable objection. The Lord forbid that I should speak as if I knew anything of my own reading. I am but a plain sailor: I have spent most of my life navigating a merchantman. This is an honourable condition. Had I to choose another life upon the world I would desire of Providence no higher station and no happier lot. A sea captain is king: his vessel is an island over which he rules: he is a servant yet not in a state of servitude: he is a dependent yet is independent: he has no cares about money for he is well paid: he keeps what hours he pleases: dresses as he likes: eats and drinks as he likes: if he carries passengers he has society. No. Let me not even seem to be pretending to the learning of a scholar. I do but repeat the things which my father was wont to repeat in my hearing. He was for forty years master of the Grammar school; a master of arts of Christ's college, Cambridge: a learned scholar in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Chaldee: and, like many of his calling, an antiquary and one who was most happy when he was poring over old manuscripts in the Archives of the Guildhall, and amassing materials which he did not live to put together for the history of Lynn Regis, sometime Lynn Episcopi. The collections made by him still lie among the chests where the corporation keep their papers. They will doubtless be found there at some future time and will serve for some other hand engaged upon the same work.
It is not to be expected that among a trading and a shipping community there should be much curiosity on such matters as the past history of their borough: the charter which it obtained from kings; the creation of a mayor: the destruction of the monasteries when the glorious Reformation restored the sunlight of the gospel and of freedom to this happy land. For the most part my father worked without encouragement save from the vicar of St. Margaret's, the Reverend Mark Gentle, S.T.P., to whose scholarly mind the antiquities and charters and leases of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, were of small account indeed compared with a newly found coin of an obscure Roman usurper, or an inscription on a Roman milestone, or the discovery of a Roman urn. Yet my father would willingly discourse upon the subject and, indeed, I think that little by little he communicated to me the whole of his knowledge, so that I became that rare creature, a sailor versed in antiquity and history: one to whom the streets and old buildings of Lynn spoke in a language unknown by the people, even unheard by them.
It pleases me to recall the tall form of my father: his bent shoulders: his wig for the most part awry: his round spectacles; his thin face. In school he was a figure of fear, always terrible, wielding the rod of office with justice Rhadamanthine, and demanding, with that unrelenting alternative, things impossible in grammar. In school hours he was a very Jupiter, a thundering Jupiter: our school was an ancient hall with an open timber roof in which his voice rolled and echoed backwards and forwards. Nor did he spare his only son. In consequence of some natural inability to cope with the niceties of syntax I was often compelled to become a warning and an admonition to the rest. I have sometimes, since those days, in considering things during the night-watch, asked myself why men of tender hearts force their children to undergo this fierce discipline of grammar—a thing instantly forgotten when a boy goes to sea: and I have thought that perhaps it was invented and encouraged by divines in order that boys might learn something of the terrors of the law divine. Out of school, however, no child ever had a parent more indulgent or more affectionate. The post of schoolmaster is honourable and one that should be desired, yet I have sometimes wished, when the disagreeable moments of swishing were upon me, that the hand of the executioner had belonged to some other boy's father—say, the father of Sam Semple.
I will tell you how he used to talk. I remember one day—it might be yesterday—he was standing on the Lady's Mount and looking down upon the gardens and fields which now lie between the ancient walls and the modern town. "Look, boy," he said, "you see fields and gardens: on those fields stood formerly monasteries and convents: these gardens were once enclosed—you may still discern some of the stone walls which surrounded them, for monk and friar. All the friars were here, so great was the wealth of the town. On that green field behind the church of St. Nicholas was the house of the Austin Friars: some fragments of these buildings have I discovered built into the houses on the west side of the field: I should like to pull down the modern houses in order to display those fragments: almost at our feet lay the house of the Black Friars, yonder to the south, between the road to the gate and the river Var, was the friary of the White Friars or Carmelites: there is the tower of the Grey Friars, who were Franciscans. On the south side of St. Margaret's there are walls and windows, with carved mullions and arches—they belong to a college of priests or perhaps a Benedictine House—there must have been Benedictines in the town; or perhaps they belonged to a nunnery: many nunneries stood beside parish churches.
"This is part of the wall of the town. 'Tis a pity that it should fall into decay, but when walls are no longer wanted for defence they are neglected. First the weather loosens the stones of the battlements; or perhaps they fall into the moat: or the people take them away for building. I wonder how much of the wall of Lynn is built into the churches and the houses and the garden walls; then the whole face of the wall disappears; then if it is a Roman wall there is left a core of concrete as in London wall which I have seen here and there where the houses are not built against it. And here is a point which I cannot get over. The wall of Lynn is two miles long: that of London is three miles long, as I am credibly informed by Stow and others. Was then, the town of Lynn at any time able to raise and to defend a wall two miles in length? It seems incredible. Yet why build a wall longer than could be defended? Were these fields and gardens once streets between the religious houses? Certain it is that Lynn Episcopi, as it was then called, was formerly a very busy place yet, I apprehend, more busy than at present in proportion only to the increased wealth and population of the country."
So he would talk to me, I suppose, because he could never find anybody else who would listen to him. Those who read this page will very likely resemble the company to whom my father ventured upon such discourse of ancient things. They would incline their heads; they would take a drink: they would sigh: they would say, "Why, sir, since you say so, doubtless it is so. No one is likely to dispute the point, but if you think upon it the time is long ago and … I think, neighbours, the wind has shifted a point to the nor'east."
The town preserves, in spite of neglect and oblivion, more of the appearance of the age than most towns. The Guildhall, where they show the sword and the silver cup of King John, is an ancient and noteworthy building: there are the old churches: there are almshouse and hospitals: there is a customhouse which the Hollanders enviously declare must have been brought over from their country and set up here, so much does it resemble their own buildings. Our streets are full of remains: here a carving in marble: here a window of ancient shape, cut in stone: here a piece of carved work from some ancient chantry chapel: here a deserted and mouldering court: here a house overhanging, gabled, with carved front: here a courtyard with an ancient house built round it; and with the narrow streets such as one finds only in the most ancient parts of our ancient cities. We have still our winding lanes with their irregularities: houses planted sideways as well as fronting the street: an irregular alignment: gables instead of a flat coping: casement windows not yet transformed by the modern sash: our old taverns; our old walls; our old market places; and the ancient bridges which span the four streams running through the midst of our town. By the riverside you may find the sailors and the craftsmen who belong to a seaport: at the customhouse you may meet the merchants and the shippers: in the market places you may find the countrymen and countrywomen—they talk an uncouth language and their manners are rough, but they are honest: and if you go to the church of St. Margaret's or St. Nicholas any day for morning prayers but especially on Sunday you may find among the congregation maidens and matrons in rich attire, the former as beautiful as in any town or country may be met; the latter stately and dignified and gracious withal.
My earliest recollection as a child shows me Captain Crowle, full-wigged, with a white silk cravat round his neck, the lace ends hanging down before, a crimson silk sash to his sword, long lace ruffles, his brown coat with silver buttons, his worsted hose, and his shoes with silver clocks. In my memory he is always carrying his hat under his arm; a stout stick always dangled from his wrist, in readiness; and he always presents the same honest face, weather-beaten, ruddy, lined, with his keen eyes under thick eyebrows and his nose long and broad and somewhat arched—such a nose as lends authority to a man. In other words, I never saw any change in the captain, though, when I first remember him he must have been fifty-five, and when he ceased to be seen in his old haunts he was close upon eighty.
I have seen, however, and I remember, many changes in the captain's ward. She is a little thing of two or three at first; then she is a merry child of six; next she is a schoolgirl of ten or eleven; she grows into a maiden of sixteen, neither girl nor woman; she becomes a woman of eighteen. I remember her in every stage. Strange to say I do not remember her between those stages.
Molly had the misfortune to lose her father in infancy. He was carried off, I believe, by smallpox. He was a ship owner, and general merchant of the town, and was generally reputed to be a man of considerable means. At his death he bequeathed the care of his widow and his child to his old servant, Captain John Crowle, who had been in the service of the house since he was apprenticed as a boy. He directed, further, that Captain Crowle should conduct the business for the child, who by his will was to inherit the whole of his fortune whatever that might prove to be, on coming of age, after subtracting certain settlements for his widow.
It was most fortunate for the child that her guardian was the most honest person in the world. He was a bachelor; he was bound by ties of gratitude to the house which he had served; he had nothing to do and nothing to think about except the welfare of the child.
I would have no secrets with my reader. Let it be known, therefore, that on looking into the position of affairs, the executor found that there was a much greater fortune for his ward than any one, even the widow, ever guessed. There were houses in the town; there were farms in Marshland; there were monies placed out on mortgage; there were three or four tall ships, chiefly in the Lisbon trade; and there were boxes full of jewels, gold chains, and trinkets, the accumulation of three or four generations of substantial trade. He kept this knowledge to himself: then, as the expenses of the household were small and there was always a large balance after the year in favour of the house, he went on adding ship to ship, house to house, and farm to farm, besides putting out monies on the security of mortgage, so that the child, no one suspecting, grew richer and richer, until by the time she was eighteen, if the captain only knew it, she became the richest heiress not only in the town of Lynn, but also in the whole county of Norfolk and even, I verily believe, in the whole country.
I think that the captain must have been what is called a good man of business by nature. A simple sailor, one taught to navigate; to take observations; to keep a log and to understand a chart, is not supposed to be thereby trained for trade. But it must have been a far-seeing man who boldly launched out into new branches, and sent whalers to the Arctic seas; ships to trade in the Baltic; and ships into the Mediterranean, as well as ships in the old trade for which Lynn was always famous, that with Lisbon for wine. He it was who enlarged the quay and rebuilt the Common Stath Yard: his countinghouse—it was called his and he was supposed to be at least a partner—was filled with clerks, and it was counted good fortune by the young men of the place to enter his service whether as prentices on board his ships, or as bookkeepers in his countinghouse, or as supercargoes or pursers in his fleet. For my own part it was always understood between us that I too was to enter his service, but as a sailor, not as a clerk. This I told him as a little boy, with the impudence of childhood: he laughed; but he remembered and reminded me from time to time. "Jack is to be a sailor—Jack will have none of your quill driving—Jack means to walk his own quarter-deck. I shall live to give Jack his sword and his telescope" … and so on, lest perchance I should forget and fall off and even accept the vicar's offer to get me a scholarship at some college of Cambridge, so that I might take a degree, and become my father's usher and presently succeed him as master of the Grammar school. "Learning," said the captain, "is a fine thing, but the command of a ship is a finer. Likewise it is doubtless a great honour to be a master of arts, such as your father, but, my lad, a rope's end is, to my mind, a better weapon than a birch." And so on. For while he knew how to respect the learning of a scholar, as he respected the piety of the vicar, he considered the calling of the sailor more delightful than that of the schoolmaster, even though not so highly esteemed by the world.
There were plenty of children in the town of Lynn to play with: but it came about in some way or other, perhaps because I was always a favourite with the captain, and was encouraged to go often to the house, that Molly became my special playfellow. She was two years younger than myself, but being forward in growth and strength the difference was not a hindrance, while there was no game or amusement pleasing to me which did not please her. For instance, every boy of Lynn, as soon as he can handle a scull, can manage a dingy; and as soon as he can haul a rope, can sail a boat. For my own part I can never remember the time when I was not in my spare time out on the river. I would sail up the river, along the low banks of the sluggish stream up and down which go the barges which carry the cargoes of our ships to the inland towns and return for more. There are also tilt boats coming down the river which are like the waggons on the road, full of passengers, sailors, servants, soldiers, craftsmen, apprentices and the like. Or I would row down the river with the current and the tide as far as the mouth where the river flows into the Wash. Then I would sail up again watching the ships tacking across the stream in their slow upward progress to the port. Or I would go fishing and bring home a basket full of fresh fish for the house: or I would paddle about in a dingy among the ships, watching them take in and discharge cargo: or receive from the barges alongside the casks of pork and beef; of rum and beer and water, for the next voyage: happy indeed, if I could get permission to tie up the painter to the rope ladder hanging over the side and so climb up and ramble over every part of the ship. And I knew every ship that belonged to the port: every Dutchman which put in with cheese and tallow, hardware and soft goods; every Norwegian that brought deal: I knew them all and when they were due and their tonnage and the name of the captain.
More than this, Molly knew as much as I did. She was as handy with her sculls; she knew every puff of wind and where to expect it at the bend of the river; she was as handy with the sails. While her mother made her a notable housewife and taught her to make bread, cakes, puddings and pies; to keep the still-room; to sew and make and mend; to brew the ale, both the strong and the small; and the punch for the captain's friends at Christmas and other festivals—while, I say, this part of Molly's education was not neglected, it was I who made her a sailor, so that there was nowhere in the place any one, man or boy or girl, who was handier with a boat or more certain with a sail than Molly. And I know not which of these two accomplishments pleased her guardian the more. That she should become a good housewife was necessary: that she should be a handy sailor was an accomplishment which, because it was rare in a girl, and belonged to the work of the other sex, seemed to him a proper and laudable object of pride.
The captain, as you have already learned, nourished a secret ambition. When I was still little more than a boy, he entrusted his secret to me. Molly's mother, the good homely body who was so notable a housekeeper, and knew nothing, as she desired to know nothing concerning the manners and customs of gentlefolk, was not consulted. Nor did the good woman even know how great an heiress her daughter had become. Now, the captain's ambition was to make his ward, by means of her fortune, a great lady. He knew little—poor man!—of what was meant by a great lady, but he wanted the heiress of such great wealth to marry some man who would lift her out of the rank and condition to which she was born. It was a fatal ambition, as you shall learn. Now, being wise after the event and quite able to lock the door after the horse has been stolen I can understand that with such an ambition the captain's only plan was to have taken the girl away; perhaps to Norwich, perhaps to London itself; to have placed her under the care of some respectable gentlewoman; to have had her taught all the fashionable fal-lals, with the graces and the sprawls and the antics of the fashionable world; to let it be buzzed abroad that she was an heiress, and then, after taking care to protect her against adventurers, to find a man after his own mind, of station high enough to make the girl's fortune equal to his own; not to overshadow it: and not to dazzle him with possibilities of spending. However, it is easy to understand what might have been done.
What was done, you understand. At nineteen, Molly was a fine tall girl, as strong as any man, her arms stout and muscular like mine; her face rosy and ruddy with the bloom of health; her eyes blue and neither too large nor too small but fearless; her head and face large; her hair fair and blowing about her head with loose curls; her figure full; her neck as white as snow; her hands large rather than small, by reason of the rowing and the handling of the ropes, and by no means white; her features were regular and straight; her mouth not too small but to my eyes the most beautiful mouth in the world, the lips full, and always ready for a smile, the teeth white and regular. In a word, to look at as fine a woman, not of the delicate and dainty kind, but strong, tall, and full of figure, as one may wish for. As to her disposition she was the most tender, affectionate, sweet soul that could be imagined; she was always thinking of something to please those who loved her; she spared her mother and worked for her guardian; she was always working at something; she was always happy; she was always singing. And never, until the captain told her, did she have the least suspicion that she was richer than all her friends and neighbours—nay—than the whole town of Lynn with its merchants and shippers and traders, all together.
You think that I speak as a lover. It is true that I have always loved Molly: there has never been any other woman in the world for whom I have ever felt the least inclination or affection. She possessed my whole soul as a child; she has it still—my soul—my heart—my whole desire—my all. I will say no more in her praise, lest I be thought to exaggerate.
Let me return for a moment to our childhood. We ran about together: we first played in the garden: we then played in the fields below the wall: we climbed over what is left of the wall: from the top of the Grey Friars' Tower; from the chapel on the Lady's Mount; we would look out upon the broad expanse of meadows which were once covered over at every high tide: there were stories which were told by old people of broken dams and of floods and inundations: children's imagination is so strong that they can picture anything. I would pretend that the flood was out again; that my companion was carried away in a hencoop and that I was swimming to her assistance. Oh! we had plays and pretences enough. If we went up the river there was beyond—what we could never reach—a castle with a giant who carried off girls and devoured them; he carried off my companion. Heavens! How I rushed to the rescue and with nothing but the boathook encountered and slaughtered him. Or if we went down the river as far as the mouth where it falls into the Ouse, we would remember the pirates and how they seized on girls and took them off to their caves to work for them. How many pirates did I slay in defence and rescue of one girl whom they dared to carry off!
Or we rambled about the town, lingering on the quays, watching the ships and the sailors and the workmen, and sometimes in summer evenings when from some tavern with its red curtain across the window came the scraping of a fiddle, and the voices of those who sang, and the stamping of those who danced, we would look in at the open door and watch the sailors within who looked so happy. Nobody can ever be so happy as sailors ashore appear to be: it is only the joy of a moment, but when one remembers it, one imagines that it was the joy of a life-time. You think that it was a bad thing for children to look on at sailors and to listen to their conversation if one may use the word of such talk as goes on among the class. You are wrong. These things do not hurt children, because they do not understand. Half the dangers in the world, I take it, come from knowledge: only the other half from ignorance. Everybody knows the ways and the life of Jack ashore. Children, however, see only the outside of things. The fiddler in the corner puts his elbow into the tune; the men get up and dance the hornpipe; the girls dance to the men, setting and jetting and turning round and round and all with so much mirth and good nature and so much kindness and so much singing and laughing, that there can be no more delightful entertainment for children than to look on at a sailors' merrymaking behind the red curtain of the tavern window.
I recall one day. It was in the month of December, in the afternoon and close upon sunset. The little maid was about eight and I was ten. We were together as usual; we had been on the river, but it was cold and so we came ashore and were walking hand in hand along the street they call Pudding Lane which leads from the Common Stath Yard to the market-place. In this lane there stands a sailors' tippling house, which is, I dare say, in all respects, such a house as sailors desire, provided and furnished according to their wants and wishes. As we passed, the place being already lit up with two or three candles in sconces, the door being wide open, and the mingled noise of fiddle, voices, and feet announcing the assemblage of company, Molly pulled me by the hand and stopped to look in. The scene was what I have already indicated. The revelry of the evening had set in: everybody was drinking: one was dancing: the fiddler was playing lustily.
We should have looked on for a minute and left them. But one of the sailors recognised Molly. Springing to his feet, he made a respectful leg and saluted the child. "Mates," he cried, "'tis our owner! The little lady owns the barky. What shall we do for her?"
Then they all sprang to their feet with a huzza for the owner, and another for the ship—and, if you will believe it, their rough fo'c'sle hands in half a minute had the child on the table in a chair like a queen. She sat with great dignity, understanding in some way that these men were in her own service, and that they designed no harm or affright to her but only to do her honour. Therefore she was not in any fear and smiled graciously; for my own part I followed and stood at the table thinking that perhaps these fellows were proposing some piratical abduction and resolving miracles of valour, if necessary.
Then they made offerings. One man pulled a red silk handkerchief from his neck and laid it in her lap; and another lugged a box of sweetmeats from his pocket: it came from Lisbon but was made, I believe, in Morocco by the Moors. A third had a gold ring on his finger—everybody knows the extravagancies of sailors—which he drew off and placed in her hand. Another offered a glass of punch. The little maid did what she had so often seen the captain do. She looked round and said, "Your good health, all the company," and put her lips to the glass which she then returned. And another offered to dance and the fiddler drew his bow across the catgut—it is a sound which inclines the heart to beat and the feet to move whenever a sailor hears it.
"I have often seen you dance," said Molly; "let the fiddler play and you shall see me dance."
I never thought she would have had so much spirit. For, you see, I had taught her to dance the hornpipe: every boy in a seaport town can dance the hornpipe: we used to make music out of a piece of thin paper laid over a tortoise-shell comb—it must be a comb of wide teeth and none of them must be broken—and with this instead of a fiddle we would dance in the garden or in the parlour. But to stand up before a whole company of sailors—who would have thought it? However, she jumped up and on the table performed her dance with great seriousness and so gracefully that they were all enchanted: they stood around, their mouths open, a broad grin on every face: the women, neglected, huddled together in a corner and were quite silent.
When she had finished, she gathered up her gifts—the silk handkerchief—it came from Calicut, the sweetmeats from Morocco, the gold ring from I know not where. "Put me down, if you please," she said. So one of them gently lifted her to the ground. "I thank you all," she curtseyed very prettily. "I wish you good-night, and when you set sail again, a good voyage."
So she took my hand and we ran away.
At the age of thirteen I went to sea. Then for ten years I sailed out and home again; sometimes to the Baltic; sometimes to Bordeaux; sometimes to Lisbon. After every voyage I found my former companion grown, yet always more lovely and more charming: the time came when we no longer kissed at parting; when we were no longer brother and sister; when, alas! we could not be lovers, because between us lay that great fortune of hers, which it would be improper to bestow upon the mate of a merchantman.
Said my father to me once by way of warning, "Jack, build not hopes that will be disappointed. This maiden is not for thee, but for thy betters. If she were poor—but she is rich—too rich, I fear me, for her happiness. Let us still say in the words of Agur, 'Give me neither poverty nor riches.' Thou art as yet young for thoughts of love. When the time comes, my son, cast your eyes among humbler maidens and find virtues and charms in one of them. But think no more—I say it for thy peace—think no more of Molly. Her great riches are like a high wall built round her to keep thee off, Jack, and others like unto thee."
They were wise words, but a young man's thoughts are wilful. There was no other maiden in whom I saw either virtues or charms because Molly among them all was like the silver moon among the glittering stars.
You have heard of the great and unexpected discovery, how the town found itself the possessor of a spa—and such a spa!—compared with which the waters of Tunbridge were feeble and those of Epsom not worth considering. That was in the year 1750, when Molly was already nineteen years of age and no longer a little maid, but a woman grown, as yet without wooers, because no one so far had been found fit, in the captain's eyes, for the hand and the purse of his lovely ward.
You have heard the opinions of the "Society" as to Sam Semple. You have also witnessed the humiliation and the basting of that young man. Let me tell you more about him before we go on to relate the progress of the conspiracy of which he was the inventor and the spring.
He was the son of one John Semple who was employed at the customhouse. The boy could look forward, like most of us, to a life of service. He might go to sea, and so become in due course, prentice, mate, and skipper; or he might be sent on board as supercargo; or he might enter the countinghouse of a merchant and keep the books; or he might follow his father and become a servant of the customhouse.
He was two years older than myself and therefore, so much above me at school. Of all the boys (which alone indicates something contemptible in his nature) he was the most disliked, not by one or two, but by the whole school; not only by the industrious and the well-behaved, but also by the lazy and the vicious.
There is always in every school, one boy at least, who is the general object of dislike: he makes no friends: his society is shunned: he may be feared, but he is hated. There are, I dare say, many causes for unpopularity: one boy is perhaps a bully who delights to ill-treat the younger and the weaker; one is a braggart: one plays games unfairly: one is apt to offend that nice sense of honour and loyalty which is cultivated by schoolboys: another is treacherous to his comrades; he tells tales, backbites and makes mischief: perhaps he belongs to an inferior station and has bad manners: perhaps he takes mean advantages: perhaps he is a coward who will not fight: perhaps he cannot do the things which boys respect.
Sam Semple was disliked for many of these reasons. He was known to be a telltale; he was commonly reported to convey things overheard to the usher, by means of which that officer was enabled to discover many little plots and plans and so bring their authors to pain and confusion. He was certainly a coward who would never fight it out, but after a grand pretence and flourish would run away at the first blow. But if he would not fight he would bear malice and would take mean revenges; he was a most notorious liar, insomuch that no one would believe any statement made by him, if it could be proved to be connected with his own advantage; he could not play any games and affected to despise the good old sports of cocking, baiting the bear, drawing the badger, playing at cricket, hockey, wrestling, racing, and the other things that make boys skilful, courageous and hardy. He was, in a word, a poor soft, cowardly creature, more like a girl—and an inferior kind of girl—than an honest lad.
He was much addicted to reading: he would, by choice, sit in a corner reading any book that he could get more willingly than run, jump, row, or race. When we had holidays he would go away by himself, sometimes on the walls, if it were summer, or in some sheltered nook, if it were winter, contented to be left alone with his printed page. He borrowed books from my father who encouraged him in reading, while he admonished him on account of his faults, and from the vicar, who lent him books, while he warned him against the reports of his character which were noised abroad. Now—I know not how—the boy became secretly inflamed with the ambition of becoming a poet. How he fell into this pitfall, which ended in his ruin, I know not. Certainly it was not from any boys in the school, or from any friend in the town, because there are no books of poetry in Lynn, save those which belong to the parson and the schoolmaster. However, he did conceive the ambition of becoming a poet—secretly, at first, because he was naturally ashamed of being such a fool, but it came out. He read poetry from choice, and rather than anything else. Once, I remember, he was flogged for taking a volume of miscellany poems into church instead of the Book of Common Prayer. The boys were astonished at the crime, because certainly one would much rather read the Book of Common Prayer, in which one knows what to expect, than a book of foolish rhymes.
I myself was the first to find out his ambition. It was in this way. Coming out of school one day I picked up a paper which was blown about the square. It was covered with writing. I read some of it, wondering what it might mean. There was a good deal and not a word of sense from beginning to end: the writing was all scored out and corrected over and over again. Thus, not to waste your time over this nonsense, it ran something like this:
When the refulgent rays of SolbeganprevailearlyDayMornToAwakenedall the maidens of the daleLawnDrove Morpheusshrieking from the bedsaway—from the maids and swains.
When the refulgent rays of SolbeganprevailearlyDayMornToAwakenedall the maidens of the daleLawnDrove Morpheusshrieking from the bedsaway—from the maids and swains.
When the refulgent rays of Solbeganprevail
earlyDayMorn
ToAwakenedall the maidens of the dale
Lawn
Drove Morpheusshrieking from the bedsaway
—from the maids and swains.
and so on. One is ashamed to repeat such rubbish. While I was reading it however, Sam Semple came running back.
"That paper is mine," he cried, with a very red face, snatching it out of my hands.
"Well—if it is yours, take it. What does it mean?"
"It's poetry, you fool."
"If you call me a fool, Sam, you'll get a black eye." He was three inches taller than myself as well as two years older—but this was the way all the boys spoke to him.
"You can't understand," he said, "none of you can understand. It's poetry, I tell you."
I told my father, who sent for him and in my presence admonished him kindly, first ordering him to submit his verses for correction, as if they were in Latin. It was after school hours: the room was empty save for the three of us—my father sat at his desk where he assumed authority. Outside the schoolroom he was but a gentle creature.
"Boy," he said, "as for these verses—I say nothing. They are but immature imitations. You would be a poet. Learn, however, that the lot of him who desires that calling is the hardest and the worst that fate can have in store for an honest man. There are many who can write rhymes: for one who has read Ovid and Virgil, the making of verse is easy. But only one or two here and there, out of millions, are there whose lips are touched with the celestial fire: only one or two whose verses can reach the heart and fire the brain of those who read them."
"Sir, may not I, too, form one of that small company?" His cheek flamed and his eyes brightened. For once Sam was handsome.
"It may be so. I say nothing to the contrary. Learn, however, that even if genius has been granted, much more will be required. He who would be a great poet must attain, if he can, by meditation and self-restraint, to the great mind. He must be sincere—truthful—courageous—think of that, boy; he must meditate. Milton's thoughts were ever on religious and civil freedom; therefore he was enabled to speak as a prophet."
He gazed upon the face of his scholar: the cheek was sallow again; the eyes dull; upon that mean countenance no sign of noble or of lofty thought. My father sighed and went on.
"It seems, to a young man, a great thing to be a poet. He will escape—will he?—the humiliations of life. He thinks that he will be no man's servant; he will be independent; he will work as his genius inclines him. Alas! he little knows the humiliations of the starveling poet. No man's servant? There is none—believe me—not even the African slave, who has to feel more of the contempts, the scorns, the servitude of the world. Such an one have I known. He had to bend the knee to the patron, who treated him with open scorn; and to the bookseller, who treated him with contempt undisguised. One may be a poet who is endowed with the means of a livelihood. Such is the ingenious Mr. Pope; or one who has an office to maintain him: such was the immortal John Milton; but, for you and such as you, boy, born in a humble condition, and ordained by Providence for that condition, there is no worse servitude than that of a bookseller's hack. Go, boy—think of these things. Continue to write verses, if by their aid you may in any way become a better man and more easily attain to the Christian life. But accept meanwhile, the ruling of Providence and do thy duty in that station of life to which thou hast been called."
So saying he dismissed the boy, who went away downcast and with hanging head.
Then my father turned to me. "Son," he said, "let no vain repinings fill thy soul. Service is thy lot. It is also mine. It is the lot of every man except those who are born to wealth and rank. I do not envy these, because much is expected of them—a thing which mostly they do not understand. And too many of these are, truth to say, in the service of Beelzebub. We are all servants of each other; let us perform our service with cheerfulness and even with joy. The Lord, who knows what is best for men, hath so ordained that we shall be dependent upon each other in all things. Servants, I say, are we all of each other. We may not escape the common lot—the common servitude."
Let me return to Sam. At the age of fourteen he was taken from school and placed in a countinghouse where his duty was to clean out, sweep, and dust the place every morning; to be at the beck and call of his master; to copy letters and to add up figures. I asked him how he liked this employment.
"It is well enough," he said, "until I can go whither I am called. But to serve at adding up the price of barrels of tarpaulin all my life! No, Jack, no. I am made of stuff too good."
He continued for three years in this employment. We then heard that he had been dismissed for negligence, his master having made certain discoveries that greatly enraged him. He then went on board ship in the capacity of clerk or assistant to the supercargo, but at the end of his first voyage he was sent about his business.
"It is true," he told me, "that there were omissions in the books. Who can keep books below, by the light of a stinking tallow candle, when one can lie on the deck in the sun and watch the waves? But these people—these people—among them all, Jack, there is not one who understands the poet, except your father, and he will have it that the poet must starve. Well, there is another way." But he would tell me no more.
That way was this. You know, because it led to the basting. The day after the adventure in the captain's garden, Sam put together all he had, borrowed what money his mother would give him and went off to London by the waggon.
After a while a letter came from him. It was addressed to his mother, who brought it to the school because she could not understand what was meant. Sam (I believe he was lying) said that he had been received into the Company of the Wits; his verse, he said, was regarded with respect at the coffee house; he was already known to many poets and booksellers; he asked for a small advance of money and he entreated his mother to let it be known in the town that he was publishing a volume of verse by subscription. His former patrons, he said, would doubtless assist him by giving their names and guineas. The book, he added, would certainly place him among the acknowledged poets of the day—even with Pope and Gay.
There was much difference of opinion as to sending the guineas: but a few of the better sort consented, and in due course received their copies. It was a thin quarto with a large margin. The title page was as follows:
"Miscellany PoemsbySAM SEMPLE,Gentleman."
"Gentleman!" said the vicar. "How long has Sam been a gentleman? He will next, no doubt, describe himself as esquire. As for the verses—trash—two-penny trash! Alas! And they cost me a guinea!"
The wonderful letter from Sam Semple was received in April. No one from the outset questioned his assertions. This seems wonderful—but they could only be tried by a letter to London or a journey thither. Now our merchants had correspondents in the city of London, but not in the fashionable quarters, and nothing is more certain than that the merchants of this city concerned themselves not at all with the pursuits of fashion or even with the gatherings of the wits in the coffee house. As for the journey to London no one will willingly undertake it unless he is compelled——You may go by way of Ely and Cambridge—but the road nearly all the way to Cambridge lies through the soft and treacherous fen when if a traveller escape being bogged, a hundred to one he will probably acquire an ague which will trouble him for many days afterwards. Or you may go by way of Swaffham and East Dereham through Norwich. By this way there are no fens, but the road to Norwich is practicable only by broad wheeled waggons or on horseback, and I doubt if the forty miles could be covered in less than two days. At Norwich, it is true, there is a better road and a stage coach carries passengers to London in twelve hours.
It is therefore a long and tedious journey from Lynn to London and one not to be undertaken without strong reasons. Then—even if the society had entertained suspicions and deputed one or more to make that journey and to inquire as to the truth of the letter, how and where, in so vast a city, would one begin the enquiry.
In truth, however, the letter was received without the least suspicion. Yet it was from beginning to end an artfully concocted lie—part of a conspiracy; an invention devised by the desire for revenge; an ingenious device—let us give the devil his due—by one whose only weapon was his cunning.
Every man of the "Society" went home brimful of the discovery. The next day the doctor's garden was crowded with people all pressing together, trampling over his currant and gooseberry bushes, drawing up the bucket without cessation in order to taste the water which was to cure all diseases—even like the Pool of Bethesda. Many among them had used the water all their lives without discovering any peculiarity in taste—in fact as if it had been ordinary water conferred upon man by Providence for the brewing of his beer and the making of his punch and the washing of his linen. Now, however, so great is the power of faith, they drank it as it came out of the well—a thing abhorrent to most people who cannot abide plain water. They held it up to the light, admiring its wonderful clearness: they called attention to the beads of air rising in the glass, as a plain proof of its health-giving qualities; they smacked their lips over it, detecting the presence of unknown ingredients: those who were already rheumatic resolved to drink it every day at frequent intervals: after a single draught they felt relief in their joints; they declared that the rheumatic pains were subsiding rapidly: nay, were already gone, and they rejoiced in the strength of their faith as if they were driving an unwelcome guest out through an open door.
The doctor made haste to issue and to print his own examination of the water. In this document as I have told you, he very remarkably agreed with the analysis sent down by the egregious Samuel. He appended to his list of ingredients certain cases which he indicated by initials in which the water had proved beneficial: most of them at the outset, were the cases of those who, on the first day, found relief from a single glass. Many more cases afterwards occurred.
After the town, the country. The report of the valuable discovery spread rapidly. The farmer folk who brought their produce, pigs, sheep, poultry and cattle to our markets carried the news home with them: the whole town—indeed, in a few hours was as they say, all agog with the discovery and eager, even down to the fo'c'sle seamen to drink of a well which was by this time reported among the ignorant class not only to cure but also to prevent diseases. Then gentlemen began to ride in; on market day there are always gentlemen in the town; they have an ordinary of their own at theCrown; they were at first incredulous but they would willingly taste of the spring. As fresh water was comparatively strange to them it is not surprising that some of them detected an indescribable taste which they were readily persuaded to believe was proof of a medicinal character. They were followed by ladies also curious to taste, to prove, and, in many cases, to be cured.
Meantime everybody, both of the town and of the country, rejoiced at hearing that it had been decided to take advantage of the discovery in order to convert Lynn Regis, previously esteemed as on the same level as Gosport in the south of England or Wapping by the port of London, into a place of fashionable resort and another Bath or Tunbridge Wells. It was difficult, however, to believe that the old town with its narrow and winding streets, its streams, its bridges, its old decayed courts and ancient pavements could accommodate itself to the wants and the taste—or even the presence of the polite world.
Then the news spread further afield. The reverend canons in their secluded close beside their venerable cathedral—whether at Peterborough, Lincoln, Ely or Norwich, heard the story magnified and exaggerated, how at Lynn had been found a spring of water that miraculously healed all wounds, cured all diseases and made the halt to run and the cripple to stand. Better than all it restored the power of drinking port wine to the old divines who had been compelled by their infirmities to give up that generous wine.
In their great colleges, a world too wide for the young men who entered them as students, the fellows heard the news and talked about the discovery in the dull combination rooms where the talk was ever mainly of the rents and the dinners, the last brew at the college brewery, yesterday's cards, or the approaching vacancy in a college living. They, too, pricked up their ears at the news because for them as well as their reverend brethren of the cathedral gout and rheumatism were deadly enemies. If only Providence would remove from mankind those two diseases which plague and pester those to whom their lives would otherwise be full of comfort and happiness, cheered by wine and punch, stayed and comforted by the good things ready to the hand of the cook and the housewife.
And from all the towns around—from Boston, Spalding, Wisbeach, Bury, Wells, there came messengers and letters of inquiry all asking if the news was true—if people had been already treated and already cured—if lodgings were to be had and so forth.
And then the preparations began. The committee went from house to house encouraging and stimulating the people to make ready for such an incursion as the place had never before known even at fair time, and promising a golden harvest. Who would not wish to share in such a harvest?
First, lodgings had to be got ready—they must be clean at least and furnished with necessaries. People at the spa do not ask for great things in furniture—they do not desire to sit in their lodgings which are only for sleeping and dressing—a blind in the window or a curtain to keep out the sun and prying eyes,—a bed—a chair—a cupboard—a looking-glass—a table—not even the most fashionable lady asks for more except that the bed be soft and the wainscot and floor of the room be clean. The better houses would be kept for the better sort: the sailors' houses by the Common Stath and the King's Stath would do for the visitors' servants who could also eat and drink in the taverns of the riverside. Houses deserted and suffered to fall into decay in the courts of the town were hastily repaired, the roofs patched up, the windows replaced, the doors and woodwork painted. Everywhere rooms were cleaned: beds were put up, all the mattresses, all the pillows, all the blankets and sheets in the town were brought up and more were ordered from Boston and other places accessible by river or by sea. Certainly the town had never before had such a cleaning while the painters worked all night as well as all day to get through their orders.
It was next necessary to provide supplies for the multitude, when they should arrive. I have spoken of the plenty and abundance of everything in the town of Lynn. The plenty is due to the great fertility of the reclaimed land which enables the farmers to grow more than they can sell for want of a market. There is sent abroad, as a rule, to the low countries, much of the produce of the farms. There was therefore no difficulty in persuading the farmers to hold their hands for a week or two, and when the company began to arrive, to send into the town quantities of provisions of all kinds—pork, bacon, mutton, beef, poultry, eggs, vegetables and milk. Boats were engaged for the conveyance of these stores down the river. There would be provided food in abundance. And as for drink there was no difficulty at all in a town which imported whole cargoes of wine every year.
I must not forget the preparation made in the churches. There are two in Lynn, ancient and venerable churches both. I believe that they were always much larger than was ever wanted considering the number of the people, but in Norfolk the churches are all too large, being so built for the greater praise and glory of God. However, both in St. Margaret's and in St. Nicholas, the congregations had long since shrunk so that there were wide spaces between the walls and the pews. These spaces were now filled up with new pews for the accommodation of the expected invasion of visitors. I confess that I admire the simple faith in the coming success of the spa which at this time animated not only those most interested as the doctor himself, but also the people of the town who knew nothing except what they were told, namely that the well in the doctor's garden had properties, which were sovereign against certain diseases, and that all the world had learned this fact and were coming to be cured.
There were next the public preparations. The necessity of despatch caused the structures to be of wood which, however, when brightly painted, may produce a more pleasing effect than brick. First, there was the pump room. This was built, of course, over the well in the doctor's garden, which it almost covered: it was a square or oblong building, having the well in one corner, and containing a simple room with large sash windows, unfurnished save for a wooden bench running round the wall and two others in the middle of the room. The water was pumped up fresh and cool—it was really a very fine well of water always copious—into a large basin; a long counter ran across the room in front of the basin: the counter was provided with glasses of various sizes and behind the counter were two girls hired as dippers. The doctor's door opened out of the pump room so as to afford readiness and convenience for consultation.
Lastly it was necessary to provide for the amusement of the visitors. Everybody knows that for one person who visits a spa for health, there are two who visit it for the amusements and the pleasures and entertainments provided at these places. I have mentioned the open fields within the walls of the town which were anciently covered with the buildings and the gardens of the monks and friars and the nuns. They are planted in some places with trees: for instance below the Lady's Mount, in which is the ancient chapel, there lie fields on which now stand many noble trees. The committee chose this spot for the construction of the assembly rooms. They first enclosed a large portion with a wooden fence: they then laid out the grounds with paths: this done they erected a long room where the assembly might be held, with a smooth and level floor fit for dancing. This room was also to be the resort of the company in the mornings and when the weather was rainy: adjoining the long room was the card room, with one long table and several small tables: and the tea room, where that beverage could be served with drinks and cordials to counteract its (possibly) evil effects. A gallery at one end was ready for the music—outside there was another building for the music to play on fine evenings.
I must not forget the decoration of the trees. Nothing could be more beautiful than this avenue after nightfall: lamps of various colours hung on festoons from branch to branch: across the avenue in arches, and from tree to tree in parallel lines: these in the evening produced an appearance of light and colour that ravished the eye of every beholder. Those who knew London declared that in the daytime this place could compare favourably with the Mall in St. James's Park, and in the evening after dark even with the Marylebone Gardens or Vauxhall.
All these preparations were pushed forward with the utmost diligence, so that everything, might be ready by the first of May, on which day it was hoped that the season of the spa would commence. Musicians and singers were engaged: they came from London, bringing good recommendation from some of the pleasure gardens where they had performed with credit. They were to play for the dancing on the nights of the assembly; they were also to play in the morning when engaged or bespoke by the gentlemen. They brought with them two or three fiddlers; players on various instruments of brass, and the horns. A dancing master, Mr. Prappit, came from Norwich: he was busy for three weeks before the opening, with the young folks of the town, who had never before danced anything more ambitious than a hey or a jig or a country dance, or a frolic round the May pole. Mr. Prappit was also engaged as master of the ceremonies, a post of great responsibility and distinction.
A theatre is a necessary part of every public place: therefore a troop of strolling players received permission to perform three evenings in the week in the large room of theDuke's Headinn: I know not what reputation they had as actors, but I can bear witness that they made as much as they could out of a passion, tearing it, so to speak, to rags, and bawling themselves hoarse, so that at least they earned their money, which was not much, I fear.
The cock pit was newly repaired for the lovers of that manly and favourite sport to which the gentlemen of Norfolk are, as is well known, much addicted. For those who prefer the more quiet games there was the bowling green. And lastly, for those who incline to the ruder sports, there were provided masters of fence who could play with quarter staff or cudgel, jugglers and conjurers, with rope dancers, tumblers, merry andrews and such folk, together with a tent for their performance.
These details are perhaps below the dignity of history. I mention them in order to let it be understood that the invention—the lying invention of Sam Semple, was bearing the fruit which he most desired in the deception of the whole town. There was never, I believe, so great a deception attempted or carried into effect.
Meantime, the work of the town continued as usual. The port had nothing to do with the spa. For my own part I was discharging cargo fromThe Lady of Lynn, and making ready to take in a new cargo. All day I was engaged on board: I slept on board: but in the evening I went ashore and looked on at the preparations, and at this new world of fashion and pleasure the like of which I had never seen before. And, as usual, the ships came into port and dropped anchor off the Stath: or they cleared out and went down the river with the current and the tide. There were two kinds of life in the place when there had never before been more than one: and while the people in one part of the town had nothing to think of but amusement, those at the other part were as usual, engaged in their various work. The clerks ran about with their quills behind their ears; the porters rolled the casks, the bargemen brought their unwieldy craft alongside with many loud sounding oaths and the yohoing without which they can do nothing; and in the taverns the sailors drank and danced and sang, quite unmindful of the people in the streets behind them.
The first arrivals were the gentlefolk from the country round Lynn. They learned when everything would be ready and they came in as soon as the gardens were laid out, the long room finished and the first evening announced—they had but a few miles to travel; they engaged the best lodgings and demanded the best provisions. As for wine, they could not have better because there is no better wine than fills the cellars of our merchants or our vintners.
As these good people came to the spa it was thought necessary to drink the waters and this they did with much importance, every morning. The natives of Norfolk are, I verily believe, the longest lived and the most healthy people in the whole world. With the exception of ague—they call it the bailiff of Marshland—the people in this county seldom suffer from any disorder and live to a good old age. Yet all with one consent began the day by drinking a glass of the cold bright water served in the pump room. Very few of them, I say, were troubled with any kind of complaint: though the gentlemen are hard drinkers, they are also hard riders and the open air and cold winds of the morning drive out and dissipate the fumes of the evening and its wine. For this reason, though many of our sea captains drink hard at sea, they are never a bit the worse for the fresh salt air is the finest restorative, and a sailor may be drunk once every twenty-four hours and yet live to a hundred and be none the worse. Most of those who drank the waters had never felt any symptoms of gout or rheumatism, lumbago, sciatica, pleurisy, consumption or asthma, or any other disease whatever. They flocked to the pump room in order to drive away even the possibility of these symptoms. To drink the waters for a month, or even for a fortnight, was considered sovereign for the keeping off of all kinds of sickness for at least a whole year to come. It was strange how quite young men and young maidens suddenly conceived this superstitious belief—I can call it nothing but superstition—that those who were perfectly well would be maintained in health—althoughyoung people of this age do not commonly contract the diseases above enumerated—by drinking a glass of water every morning. That old men, who will catch at anything that offers to restore health, should resort to this newly discovered universal medicine was not so strange. Captain Crowle, who, to my certain knowledge, had never suffered a day's sickness in the seventy years of his life; who kept his teeth firm and sound; whose hair had not fallen off; who stood firm on his legs and square in his shoulders; who still drank free and devoured his rations as eagerly as any able-bodied sailor, marched every morning to the pump room and took his glass. "Jack," he said, "the discovery is truly miraculous. By the Lord! it will make us all live to be a hundred. Already I feel once more like a man of thirty. I shall shake a leg, yet, at the wedding of Molly's grandchildren."
They all consulted the doctor—the sick and the well alike—the former in order to be cured and the latter in order to guard against disease. Now that one knows the foundation of the whole business it is wonderful to reflect upon the number of cures the doctor was able to register in his book: cures about which there could be neither doubt nor dispute, so that one is fain to think that faith alone may be sufficient to drive out rheumatism. The prescription of the worthy doctor rested entirely on the curative power of the water. "You will take," he said to every one who came to him, "every morning before breakfast for choice, a glass of the water. Or, if you prefer first to take a dish of tea, a cup of chocolate, or a draught of beer, do so by all means. In that case take your glass an hour—not more—after breakfast. I prescribe in your case, a dose in a glass numbered A or B—or C"—as the case might be. "It contains seven ounces and six drachms"—or some other weight as the case might be. He was very exact in the size of the glass and the weight of the dose. "This is the exact quantity which operates efficaciously in your case. Do not take more which will not expedite your cure: nor less which will hinder it. Seven ounces and six drachms."
The doctor's dignity and gravity indeed were a credit to the town. Out of London, I believe, there was no physician with such outward tokens of science. The velvet coat he now wore habitually: a new wig greatly delayed had been brought from Norwich: his lace and his linen were clean every morning: his fingers became curly from the continual clasp of the guinea. No one, I am sure, expected to find so grave and dignified a physician in a town occupied mainly by rude tarpaulins and their ladies. Where nothing better than a mere apothecary could be expected there was found a physician in manner and in appearance equal to the most fashionable doctor of medicine in London itself.
"Before breakfast, madam," he repeated. "Fasting, if possible. If that is not convenient, after breakfast. Think not to hasten the operation of the waters by too generous a use of them. Seven ounces and six drachms in weight. Let that be your daily allowance: that and no more. For your diet, let it be ample, generous, and of the best quality that the market supplies. It is providentially, considering the wants of the spa—the best market in Norfolk, provided with birds of all kinds, both wild and of the farmyard: with beef and mutton fattened on the pastures of Marshland; and with fruit and other things of the very best. Partake plentifully, madam. Do not deny yourself. Tea, you may take if you desire it: very good tea can be obtained of the apothecary at a guinea a pound. For my own part I allow the beverage to be sometimes useful in clearing the brain of noxious vapours and the body of corrupt humours. For wine I recommend Port, Malmesey, Madeira or Lisbon—but not more than one measured pint in the day. You must take exercise gently by walking in the gardens, or in the long room, or by dancing in the evening. And you may maintain cheerfulness of mind, which is beneficial in any case whether of sickness or of health, by taking a hand in the card room."
To the gentlemen who had not as yet fallen victims to any of the prevalent diseases he would discourse much after the same fashion.
"Put out your tongue, sir—I believe it to be furred—— So…. Dear me! Worse than I suspected. And your pulse? I believe it to be strong. So. As I thought. A little too strong, perhaps even febrile. Your habits, I suppose, include a hearty appetite and a full allowance of strong ale and wine. You ride—you hunt—you attend races, cockpit and sport of all kinds; you are not addicted to reading or to study, and you sometimes play cards."
"The doctor," said his patients afterwards, "knew exactly and could tell by my pulse and my tongue my daily way of living. 'Tis wonderful!"
"It is my duty to warn you, sir, that you have within you the seeds of gout—of inflammatory gout—which will fix itself first upon the big toe and thus become like a bag of red hot needles. Afterwards it will mount higher—but I will spare you the description of your dying agonies. You may, however, avert this suffering, or postpone it, so that it will only seize upon you should you live to a hundred and twenty, or thereabouts. The surest method is by drinking these waters every year for a week or two. One tumbler every morning fasting. You will take a measured weight of seven ounces and six drachms—" or as I said before some other weight. "I prescribe in your case, no other medicine. Let your diet be generous. Confine yourself to a single bottle of wine a day. Ride as usual and, in fact, live as you are accustomed. Nature, sir, abhors a revolution: she expects to perform her usual work in the usual manner."
If any came to him already afflicted with gout or rheumatism he prescribed for them in a similarly easy and simple fashion.
"You have been taking colchicum—" or whatever it might have been. "I recommend you on no account to discontinue a medicine to which you are accustomed. Gout is an enemy which may be attacked from many points. While it is resisting so far successfully the attack by the drugs which have been administered to you, I shall attack it from an unsuspected quarter. Ha! I shall fall upon the unguarded flank with an infallible method. You will take, sir, three glasses of water daily; each before meals. Each glass contains the measured weight of seven ounces and six drachms," or some other weight was carefully prescribed. "You will, in other respects, follow the diet recommended by your former physicians."
"The doctor," said his patients, "is not one who scoffs at his brethren. On the contrary, he continues their treatment, only adding the water. And you see what I am now."
"Observe," the doctor continued, "my treatment is simple. It is so simple that it must command success. I shall expect therefore, to find in you, for your own share in the cure, that faith which assists nature. Nothing so disconcerts an enemy as the confidence of victory on the other side. Before that faith, gout flies, terrified; and nature, triumphant, resumes that nice balanced equilibrium of all the functions which the unlearned call health."
The doctor also encouraged his dippers, one of whom was a young woman of attractive appearance and great freedom of tongue, to relate for the benefit of those who drank the waters, cases of cure and rapid recovery. This encouragement caused the girl who had a fine natural gift of embellishment or development, to sing the praises of the spa with a most audacious contempt for the structure of fact.
"Lawk, madam!" she would say, using the broad Norfolk accent which I choose to convert into English, because her discourse would be unintelligible save to the folk of the county. "To think what this blessed water can do! That poor gentleman who has just gone out—you saw yourself that he now walks as upright as a lance and as stiff as a recruiting sergeant. He first came to the pump room, was it a fortnight ago or three weeks, Jenny? Twelve days? To be sure. You ought to know—Jenny dipped for him, madam. He was carried in: his very crutches were no good to him; and as for his poor feet, they dangle for all the world like lumps of pork. And his groans,—Lawk!—they would move a heart of stone. Jenny here, who has a feeling heart, though but a humble dipper at your service, madam, like myself and pleased to be of service to so fine a lady, burst into tears when she saw him—didn't you, Jenny, my dear? Before all the people, she did. Well, he drank three tumblers every day—each exactly seven ounces and six drachms in weight—oh! the doctor knows what to do for his patients—did your ladyship ever see a wiser doctor? On the third day he left off groaning: on the fourth he said, 'I feel better, give me my third tumbler.' Didn't he say those very words, Jenny? 'Give me my third,' he said. On the fifth day he walked in by himself. It was on crutches, it is true, for even this water takes its time. Lord forbid that I should tell your ladyship anything but gospel. On the sixth day he used a walking stick: on the seventh, he said, walking upright, his stick over his shoulder, 'If it was not Sunday,' he said, 'I should cut a caper—cut a caper,' he said. Jenny heard him. And now he talks of going home where a sweet young lady, almost as beautiful as your ladyship, waits for him with a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. She couldn't marry a man, could she, madam, with both feet, as a body might say, in the grave? Nobody except the doctor and us dippers, knows the secrets of the spa. If we could talk—but there we are bound to secrecy, because ladies would not let the world know that they have had ailments—but if we could talk, you would be astonished. Tell her ladyship, Jenny, about the old gammer of ninety, while I attend to the company. Yes, sir, coming, sir."
And so she rattled on, talking all day long and never tired of inventing these stories. The people listened, laughed, affected disbelief, yet believed. They drank the waters, and put down their twopences, which went into a box kept for the doctor. What with the patients' guineas and the daily harvest of this box he, at least, was in a fair way of proving the truth of his own prophecy that everybody in Lynn would be enriched by the grand discovery.