The Lady of Lynn. Walter Besant
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.
CHAPTER IV
THE GRAND DISCOVERY
"Mr. Sam Semple," the doctor continued, with emphasis on the prefix to which, indeed, the poet was not entitled in his native town, "doth not ask for help: he is not starving: he is prosperous: he has gained the friendship, or the patronage, of certain persons of quality. This is the reward of genius. Let us forget that he was the son of a customhouse servant, and let us admit that he proved unequal to the duties—for which he was unfitted—of a clerk. He has now risen—we will welcome one whose name will in the future add lustre to our town."
The vicar shook his head. "Trash," he murmured, "trash."
"Well, gentlemen, I will proceed to read the letter."
He unfolded it and began with a sonorous hum.
"'Honoured Sir,'" he repeated the words. "'Honoured Sir,'—the letter, gentlemen, is addressed to myself—ahem! to myself. 'I have recently heard of a discovery which will probably affect in a manner so vital, the interests of my beloved native town, that I feel it my duty to communicate the fact to you without delay. I do so to you rather than to my esteemed patron, the worshipful the mayor, once my master, or to Captain Crowle, or to any of those who subscribed for my volume of Miscellany Poems, because the matter especially and peculiarly concerns yourself as a physician, and as the fortunate owner of the spring or well which is the subject of the discovery'—the subject of the discovery, gentlemen. My well—mine." He went on. "'You are aware, as