The Lady of Lynn

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.

CHAPTER VI

THE MAID OF LYNN

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.