The Lady of Lynn. Walter Besant
poet took the papers. They were dry eating and I fear tasteless, but in a few minutes he had swallowed them all.
"They are down," said the captain. "Now comes the basting. And I would have you to understand, lump of impudence, that it is my mercy only – my foolish mercy, perhaps, that keeps me from sending you through the town at the tail of a cart. Kneel down, sir, in token of repentance. What? I say – kneel down."
The basting which followed was really worthy of the days when Captain Crowle, with his own hand, quelled a mutiny and drove the whole crew under hatches. The right hand at seventy was as vigorous as at forty. For my own part, I attempted no interference. The captain was wrathful but he had command of himself. If he added to the basting a running commentary of sea-going terms, signifying scorn and contempt, with the astonishment with which a sailor always regards presumption, it was only to increase the terror and the effect of the cudgelling. I am quite certain that he was resolved in his own mind when he should stop; that is to say, when the justice of the case would have been met and revenge would begin. And I hold myself excused for not preventing any portion of this commentary.
It was a poor, shrinking, trembling figure full of bruises and aches and pains that presently arose and slunk away. I should have felt sorry for him had he taken punishment like a man. Why, I would maroon any of my crew who would cry and grovel and snivel when tied up for his three dozen. It made one sick and ashamed to see him and to hear him, with his —
"Mercy, captain! Oh! Enough, good captain! Oh! captain, I confess. I deserve it all. Never again, captain. Oh! Forgiveness – forgiveness!" And so on. I say it made me sick and ashamed. When all was over I followed him to the garden gate. "Oh! Jack," he groaned. "You stood by and saw it all. I am a dead man. He shall be hanged for it. You are the witness. I am nothing but a bag of broken bones. Ribs and collar bones and skull. I am a poor, unfortunate, murdered man. I am done to death with a cudgel."
"Go home," I said. "You a man? You cry like a whipped cur. Murdered? Not you. Cudgelled you are, and well you deserved it. Go home and get brown paper and vinegar and tell all the town how you have been cudgelled for writing verses to a matchless maid. They will laugh, Sam Semple. They will laugh."
The captain went back to the parlour, somewhat flushed with the exercise.
"Justice," he said, "has been done, without the cart and the cat. My pipe, Jennifer, and the home-brewed. Molly, my dear, your very good health."
A day or two afterwards, we heard that Sam Semple had gone to London to make his fortune. He was carried thither by the waggon that once a week makes the journey to London, returning the following week. But when Sam Semple came back it was in a chaise, with much splendour, as in due course you shall hear. You shall also hear of the singular gratitude with which he repaid the captain for that wholesome correction.
CHAPTER I
MY LORD'S LEVEE
It is three years later. We are now in the year 1750.
At twelve o'clock in the morning the anteroom of the town house of the Right Honourable the Earl of Fylingdale was tolerably filled with a mixed company attending his levee. Some were standing at the windows; some were sitting: a few were talking: most, however, were unknown to each other, and if they spoke at all, it was only to ask each other when his lordship might be expected to appear.
As is customary at a great lord's levee there were present men of all conditions; they agreed, however, in one point, that they were all beggars. It is the lot of the nobleman that he is chiefly courted for the things that he can give away, and that the number of his friends and the warmth of their friendship depend upon the influence he is supposed to possess in the bestowal of places and appointments.
Among the suitors this morning, for instance, was a half-pay captain who sought for a company in a newly raised regiment: he bore himself bravely, but his face betrayed his anxiety and his necessities. The poor man would solicit his lordship in vain, but this he did not know, and so he would be buoyed up for a time with new hopes. Beside him stood a lieutenant in the navy, who wanted promotion and a ship. If good service and wounds in battle were of any avail he should have commanded both, but it is very well known that in the Royal Navy there are no rewards for gallantry; men grow old without promotion: nothing helps but interest: a man may remain a midshipman for life without interest: never has it been known that without interest a ship has been bestowed even upon the most deserving officer and after the most signal service. The lieutenant, too, would be cheered by a promise, and lulled by false hopes – but that he did not know.
One man wanted a post in the admiralty: the pay is small but the perquisites and the pickings are large: for the same reason another asked for a place in the customs. A young poet attended with a subscription list and a dedication. He thought that his volume of verse, once published, would bring him fortune, fame, and friends: he, too, would be disappointed. The clergyman wanted another living: one of the fat and comfortable churches in the city: a deanery would not be amiss: he was even ready to take upon himself the office of bishop, for which, indeed, he considered that his qualifications admirably fitted him. Would his lordship exercise his all powerful influence in the matter of that benefice or that promotion?
A young man, whose face betrayed the battered rake, would be contented even with carrying the colours on the Cape Coast regiment if nothing better could be had. Surely his lordship would procure so small a thing as that! If nothing could be found for him then – the common side of the King's Bench Prison and rags and starvation until death released him. Poor wretch! He was on his way to that refuge, but he knew it not; for my lord would promise to procure for him what he wanted.
So they all waited, hungry and expectant, thinking how best to frame their requests: how best to appear grateful before there was any call for gratitude. Surely a nobleman must grow wearied with the assurances of gratitude and promises of prayers. His experience must teach him that gratitude is but a short-lived plant: a weed which commonly flourishes for a brief period and produces neither flowers nor fruit; while as for the prayers, though we may make no doubt that the fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much, we are nowhere assured that the prayers of the worldly and the unrighteous are heard on behalf of another; while there is no certainty that the promised petition will ever be offered up before the throne. Yet the suitors, day after day, repeat the same promise, and rely on the same belief. "Oh! my lord," they say, or sing with one accord, "your name: your voice: your influence: it is all that I ask. My gratitude: my life-long gratitude: my service: my prayers will all be yours."
Soon after twelve o'clock the doors of the private apartments were thrown open and his lordship appeared, wearing the look of dignity and proud condescension combined, which well became the star he wore and the ancient title which he had inherited. His age was about thirty, a time of life when there linger some remains of youth and the serious responsibilities are yet, with some men, hardly felt. His face was cold and proud and hard; the lips firmly set: the eyes keen and even piercing; the features regular: his stature tall, but not ungainly, his figure manly. It was remarkable, among those who knew him intimately, that there was as yet no sign of luxurious living on face and figure. He was not as yet swelled out with wine and punch: his neck was still slender; his face pale, without any telltale marks of wine and debauchery; so far as appearance goes he might pass if he chose, for a person of the most rigid and even austere virtue. This, as I have said, was considered remarkable by his friends, most of whom were already stamped on face and feature and figure with the outward and visible tokens of a profligate life. For, to confess the truth at the very beginning and not to attempt concealment, or to suffer a false belief as regards this nobleman, he was nothing better than a cold-blooded, pitiless, selfish libertine; a rake, and a voluptuary; one who knew and obeyed no laws save the laws of (so-called) honour. These laws allow a man to waste his fortune at the gaming table: to ruin confiding girls: to spend his time with rake hell companions in drink and riot and debauchery of all kinds. He must, however, pay his gambling debts: he must not cheat at cards; he must be polite in speech: he must be ready to fight whenever the occasion calls for his sword, and the quarrel seems of sufficient importance. Lord Fylingdale, however, was not among those who found his chief pleasure scouring the streets and in mad riot. You shall learn, in due course, what forms of pleasure chiefly attracted him.
I have said that