The Lady of Lynn

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.

CHAPTER VII

THE POET

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 Sol began prevailearly Day MornTo Awakened all the maidens of the daleLawnDrove Morpheus shrieking from the beds away– 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!"

CHAPTER VIII

THE OPENING OF THE SPA

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 the Crown; 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.