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.
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.