Читать книгу The Lady of Lynn - Walter Besant - Страница 4

It was about seven o'clock in the evening of early April, at the going down of the sun that I was at last able to drop into the dingy and go ashore. All day and all night and all the day before we had been beating through the shallows of the Wash and the narrow channel of the Ouse. We had laid her to her moorings off the Common Stath and made all taut and trim: the captain had gone ashore with the papers: the customhouse officer had been aboard: we were to begin breaking cargo on the morrow. The ship was The Lady of Lynn, 380 tons, Robert Jaggard, master marines, being captain, and I the mate or chief officer. There was no better skipper in the port of Lynn than Captain Jaggard: there was no better crew than that aboard The Lady of Lynn, not a skulker or a lubber in the whole ship's company; and though I say it myself, I dare affirm that the mate did credit to his ship as much as the captain and the crew. We were in the Lisbon trade: we had therefore come home laden with casks of the rich strong wine of the country: the Port and Lisbon Sherry and Malaga, besides Madeira and the wine of Teneriffe and the Grand Canary. Our people of the Marshland and the Fens and those of Lincolnshire and Norfolk where the strong air of the east winds kill all but the stoutest, cannot have too much of this rich wine: they will not drink the lighter wines of Bordeaux which neither fire the blood nor mount to the head. A prosperous voyage we had made: the Bay of Biscay suffered us to cross with no more than half a gale: The Lady of Lynn, in fact, was known in port to be a lucky ship – as lucky as her owner – lucky in her voyages and lucky in her cargoes.

At the stairs of the Common Stath Yard I made fast the painter and shipped the sculls. And there, waiting for me, was none other than my good old friend and patron, Captain Crowle.

The captain was by this time well advanced in life, being upwards of seventy: yet he showed little touch of time: his honest face being still round and full; his eyes still free from lines and crows'-feet; his cheek ruddy and freckled, as if with the salt sea breeze and the driving spray. He was also as upright as any man of thirty and walked with as firm a step and had no need of the stout stick which he carried in his hand, as a weapon and a cudgel for the unrighteous, more than a staff for the bending knees of old age.

"What cheer – ahoy?" He shouted from the quay as I dropped over the side into the dingy. "What cheer, Jack?" he repeated when I ran up the steps. "I've seen the skipper. Come with me to the Crown" – but the proper place for mates was the Duke's Head. "Nay, it shall be the Crown. A bowl of punch shall welcome back The Lady of Lynn." He turned and looked at the ship lying in the river at her moorings among the other craft. "She's as fine a vessel as this old port can show – and she's named after as fine a maid. Shalt see her to-morrow, Jack, but not to-night."

"I trust, sir, that she is well and in good spirits."

"Ay – ay. Nothing ails her – nothing ails her, Jack," he pointed with his stick. "Look how she flourishes. There are fifteen tall ships moored two and two off the King's Stath and half a dozen more off the Common Stath. Count them, Jack. Six of these ships belong to the little maid. Six of them – and two more are afloat, of which one is homeward bound and should be in port soon if all goes well. Eight noble ships, Jack, are hers. And the income of nigh upon eighteen years and houses and broad lands."

"She has a prudent guardian, captain."

"May be – may be. I don't deny, Jack, but I've done the best I could. Year after year, the money mounteth up more and more. You love her, Jack, and therefore I tell you these things. And you can keep counsel. I talk not in the market place. No one knows her wealth but you and me. They think that I am part owner. I let them think so, but you and I know better, Jack." He nodded his head looking mighty cunning.

"She cannot be too wealthy or too prosperous, captain. I knew full well that her prosperity only increases the gulf between us, but I had long ago understood that such an heiress was not for a mate on board a merchantman."

"She is not, Jack," the captain replied, gravely. "Already she is the richest heiress in all Norfolk – perhaps in the whole country. Who is to marry her? There, I confess, I am at a loss. I must find a husband for her. There's the rub. She may marry any in the land: there is none so high but he would desire a wife so rich and so virtuous. Where shall I look for a husband fit for her? There are admirals, but mostly too old for her: she ought to have a noble lord, yet, if all tales be true, they are not fit, most of them to marry a virtuous woman. Shall I give Molly to a man who gambles and drinks and rakes and riots? No, Jack, no. Not for twenty coronets. I would rather marry her to an honest sailor like yourself. Jack, my lad, find me a noble lord, as like yourself as one pea is like another, and he shall have her. He must be as proper a man; as strong a man; a clean liver; moderate in his cups … find him for me, Jack, and he shall have her."

"Well, but, captain, there are the gentlemen of Norfolk."

"Ay… There are – as you say – the gentlemen. I have considered them, Jack. Molly is not a gentlewoman by birth, I know that very well: but her fortune entitles her to marry in a higher rank. Ay … there are the gentlemen. They are good fox hunters: they are good at horse racing, but they are hard drinkers, Jack: they are fuddled most evenings: my little maid must not have a husband who is put to bed drunk every night."

"You must take her to London, captain, and let her be seen."

"Ay – ay … if I only knew where to go and how to begin."

"She is young; there is no need for hurry: you can wait awhile, captain."

"Ay … we can wait a while. I shall be loth to let her go, God knows – Come to-morrow, Jack. She was always fond of you: she talks about you: 'tis a loving little maid: you played with her and ran about with her. She never forgets. The next command that falls in – but I talk too fast. Well – when there is a ship in her fleet without a captain – But come, my lad."

He led the way, still talking of his ward and her perfections, through the narrow street they call Stath Lane into the great market place, where stands the Crown Inn.

The room appropriated to the "Society of Lynn," which met every evening all the year round, was that on the ground floor looking upon the market place. The "society," or club, which is never dissolved, consists of the notables or better sort of the town: the vicar of St. Margaret's; the curate of St. Nicholas; the master of the school – my own father: Captain Crowle and other retired captains; the doctor; some of the more substantial merchants; with the mayor, some of the aldermen, the town clerk, and a justice of the peace or two. This evening most of these gentlemen were already present.

Captain Crowle saluted the company and took his seat at the head of the table. "Gentlemen," he said, "I wish you all a pleasant evening. I have brought with me my young friend Jack Pentecrosse – you all know Jack – the worthy son of his worthy father. He will take a glass with us. Sit down beside me, Jack."

"With the permission of the society," I said.

Most of the gentlemen had already before them their pipes and their tobacco. Some had ordered their drink – a pint of port for one: a Brown George full of old ale for another; a flask of Canary for a third: and so on. But the captain, looking round the room, beckoned to the girl who waited. "Jenny," he said, "nobody calls for anything to-night except myself. Gentlemen, it must be a bowl – or a half dozen bowls. Tell your mistress, Jenny, a bowl of the biggest and the strongest and the sweetest. Gentlemen, you will drink with me to the next voyage of The Lady of Lynn."

But then a thing happened – news came – which drove all thoughts of The Lady of Lynn out of everybody's mind. That toast was forgotten.

The news was brought by the doctor, who was the last to arrive.

It was an indication of the importance of our town that a physician lived among us. He was the only physician in this part of the country: he practised among the better sort, among the noble gentlemen of the country round about Lynn and even further afield in the northern parts of the shire, and among the substantial merchants of the town. For the rest there were the apothecary, the barber and blood-letter, the bone-setter, the herbalist and the wise woman. Many there were even among the better sort who would rather consult the woman, who knew the powers of every herb that grows, than the physician who would write you out the prescription of Mithridates or some other outlandish name composed of sixty or seventy ingredients. However, there is no doubt that learning is a fine thing and that Galen knew more than the ancient dames who sit in a bower of dried herbs and brew them into nauseous drinks which pretend to cure all the diseases to which mankind is liable.

Doctor Worship was a person who habitually carried himself with dignity. His black dress, his white silk stockings, his gold shoe buckles, the whiteness of his lace and linen, his huge wig, his gold-headed cane with its pomander, proclaimed his calling, while the shortness of his stature with the roundness of his figure, his double chin, his thick lips and his fat nose all assisted him in the maintenance of his dignity. His voice was full and deep, like the voice of an organ and he spoke slowly. It has, I believe, been remarked that dignity is more easily attained by a short fat man than by one of a greater stature and thinner person.

At the very first appearance of the doctor this evening it was understood that something had happened. For he had assumed an increased importance that was phenomenal: he had swollen, so to speak: he had become rounder and fuller in front. Everybody observed the change: yes – he was certainly broader in the shoulders: he carried himself with more than professional dignity: his wig had risen two inches in the foretop and had descended four inches behind his back: his coat was not the plain cloth which he wore habitually in the town and at the tavern, but the black velvet which was reserved for those occasions when he was summoned by a person of quality or one of the county gentry, and he carried the gold-headed cane with the pomander box which also belonged to those rare occasions.

"Gentlemen," he said, looking around the room slowly and with emphasis, so that, taking his change of manner and of stature – for men so seldom grow after fifty – and the emphasis with which he spoke and looked, gathering together all eyes, caused the company to understand, without any possibility of mistake, that something had happened of great importance. In the old town of Lynn Regis it is not often that anything happens. Ships, it is true, come and go; their departures and their arrivals form the staple of the conversation: but an event, apart from the ships, a surprise, is rare. Once, ten years before this evening, a rumour of the kind which, as the journals say, awaits confirmation, reached the town, that the French had landed in force and were marching upon London. The town showed its loyalty by a resolution to die in the last ditch: the resolution was passed by the mayor over a bowl of punch; and though the report proved without foundation the event remained historical: the loyalty and devotion of the borough – the king's own borough – had passed through the fire of peril. The thing was remembered. Since that event, nothing had happened worthy of note. And now something more was about to happen: the doctor's face was full of importance: he clearly brought great news.

Great news, indeed; and news forerunning a time unheard of in the chronicles of the town.

"Gentlemen," the doctor laid his hat upon the table and his cane beside it. Then he took his chair, adjusted his wig, put on his spectacles, and then, laying his hand upon the arms of the chair he once more looked round the room, and all this in the most important, dignified, provoking, interesting manner possible. "Gentlemen, I have news for you."

As a rule this was a grave and a serious company: there was no singing: there was no laughing: there was no merriment. They were the seniors of the town: responsible persons; in authority and office: substantial, as regards their wealth: full of dignity and of responsibility. I have observed that the possession of wealth, much more than years, is apt to invest a man with serious views. There was little discourse because the opinions of every one were perfectly well-known: the wind: the weather: the crops: the ships: the health or the ailments of the company, formed the chief subjects of conversation. The placid evenings quietly and imperceptibly rolled away with some sense of festivity – in a tavern every man naturally assumes some show of cheerfulness and at nine o'clock the assembly dispersed.

Captain Crowle made answer, speaking in the name of the society, "Sir, we await your pleasure."

"My news, gentlemen, is of a startling character. I will epitomise or abbreviate it. In a word, therefore, we are all about to become rich."

Everybody sat upright. Rich? all to become rich? My father, who was the master of the Grammar school, and the curate of St. Nicholas, shook their heads like Thomas the Doubter.

"All you who have houses or property in this town: all who are concerned in the trade of the town: all who direct the industries of the people – or take care of the health of the residents – will become, I say, rich." My father and the curate who were not included within these limits, again shook their heads expressively but kept silence. Nobody, of course, expects the master of the Grammar school, or a curate, to become rich.

"We await your pleasure, sir," the captain repeated.

"Rich! you said that we were all to become rich," murmured the mayor, who was supposed to be in doubtful circumstances. "If that were true – "

"I proceed to my narrative." The doctor pulled out a pocketbook from which he extracted a letter. "I have received," he went on, "a letter from a townsman – the young man named Samuel Semple – Samuel Semple," he repeated with emphasis, because a look of disappointment fell upon every face.

"Sam Semple," growled the captain; "once I broke my stick across his back." He did not, however, explain why he had done so. "I wish I had broken two. What has Sam Semple to do with the prosperity of the town?"

"You shall hear," said the doctor.

"He would bring a book of profane verse to church instead of the Common Prayer," said the vicar.

"An idle rogue," said the mayor; "I sent him packing out of my countinghouse."

"A fellow afraid of the sea," said another. "He might have become a supercargo by this time."

"Yet not without some tincture of Greek," said the schoolmaster; "to do him justice, he loved books."

"He made us subscribe a guinea each for his poems," said the vicar. "Trash, gentlemen, trash! My copy is uncut."

"Yet," observed the curate of St. Nicholas, "in some sort perhaps, a child of Parnassus. One of those, so to speak, born out of wedlock, and, I fear me, of uncertain parentage among the Muses and unacknowledged by any. There are many such as Sam Semple on that inhospitable hill. Is the young man starving, doctor? Doth he solicit more subscriptions for another volume? It is the way of the distressed poet."

The doctor looked from one to the other with patience and even resignation. They would be sorry immediately that they had offered so many interruptions. When it seemed as if every one had said what he wished to say, the doctor held up his hand and so commanded silence.