The Lady of Lynn. Walter Besant

and no mirth or laughter; the family groups were not broken up; the people looked at each other and walked round and round in silence; after the first round or so, when they had seen all the dresses, the girls yawned and wanted to sit down.

      The master of the ceremonies exerted himself in vain. He had hoped so much and promised so much that it was sad to see him standing in front of the orchestra and vainly endeavouring to find couples for the minuet. How should they dance a minuet when there were no leaders to begin? And where were the gentlemen? Most of them were at the tavern or the cockpit, drinking and cockfighting, and making bets. What was the use of calling a country dance when there were none to stand up except ladies and old men? Mr. Prappet, in a blue silk coat and embroidered waistcoat, hat under arm, and flourishing his legs as a fencing master flourishes his arms, fell into despondency. "I make no progress, Mr. Pentecrosse," he said. "I cannot begin with the beaux of the town; they are nautical or rustical, to tell the truth, and they are beneath the gentry of the county. If I begin with them none of the gentry will condescend either to dance with them or to follow them, and so the character of the assembly will be gone. We must obey the laws of society. We want rank, sir. We want a leader. We want two or three people of fashion, otherwise these county families, none of whom will yield precedence to any other, and will not endure that one should stand up before the other, will never unbend. They are jealous. Give me a leader – a nobleman – a baronet – a lady of quality – and you shall see how they will fall in. First, the nobility, according to rank; after them, the gentry; then the town degrees must be observed. But, in order to observe degrees, sir, we must have rank among us. At present we are a mob. An assembly in the polite world should be like the English Constitution, which, Mr. Pentecrosse, consists of Lords and Commons – Ladies, and the wives and daughters of commoners."

      To me it was amusing only to see the people in their fine dresses marching round and round while the music played, trailing their skirts on the floor, swinging their hoops, and handling their fans; for the lack of young men, talking to the clergy from the cathedrals and the colleges, and casting at each other glances of envy if one was better dressed, or of scorn when one was worse dressed than themselves.

      "As for the men, Jack," said Captain Crowle, "I keep looking about me. I try the pump room in the morning, the ordinary at dinner, the taverns after dinner. My lad, there is not one among them all who is fit to be mated with our Molly. Gentlemen, are they? I like not the manner of these gentlemen. They are mostly young, but drink hard already. If their faces are red and swollen at twenty-five, what will they be at forty? My girl shall marry none of them. Nor shall she dance with them. She shall stay at home."

      In fact, during the first week or two after the opening of the spa, Molly remained at home and was not seen in the long room or in the gardens.

      The town was nearly full, many of the visitors having to put up with mean lodgings in the crazy old courts, of which there are so many in Lynn, when the first arrival from London took place. It was that of a clergyman named Benjamin Purdon, Artium Magister, formerly of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a man of insignificant presence, his figure being small and thin, but finely dressed. His head was almost hidden by a full ecclesiastical wig. Apparently he was between forty and fifty years of age; he looked about him and surveyed the company with an air of superiority, as if he had been a person of rank. He spoke with a loud, rather a high voice; his face was pale and his hands, which he displayed, were as white as any woman's, on one finger he wore a large ring with a stone on which were carved three graces, or Greek goddesses, standing in a row. To some the ring was a stumbling-block, as hardly in accordance with the profession of a divine. "Art," however, he was wont to say, "knows nothing of Eve's apple and its consequences. Art is outside religion;" and so forth. Fustian stuff, it seems to me, looking back; but at that time we were carried away by the authority of the man.

      He came to us down the river by a tilt boat from Cambridge, and accepted, contentedly, quite a humble lodging, barely furnished with a chair and a flock bed. "Humility becomes a divine," he said, in a high, authoritative voice. "The room will serve. A coal fire and an open window will remove the mustiness. Who am I that I should demand the luxuries of Lucullus? The Cloth should daily offer an example. We must macerate the flesh." He was thin, but he certainly practised not maceration. "We must subdue the body. To him who meditates a hovel becomes a palace. There is an ordinary, you say, daily at the 'Crown' – At two shillings? For the better subjugation of the carnal appetite it should have been one and sixpence. Nevertheless, I have heard of the green goslings of Lynn. Perhaps I shall now be privileged to taste them. There were excellent ruffs and reeves when I was at college that came to the market-place from the fens in the May time. You have a Portuguese trade I am told – in wine, I hope, otherwise we are not likely to get anything fit for a gentleman to drink. It is, indeed, little that I take; were it not for my infirmities, I should take none. Your port, I hope, is matured. More sickness is caused by new wine than by any other cause. Give me wine of twenty years – but that is beyond hope in this place. If it is three, four, or five years old, I shall be fortunate beyond my expectation." He did not say all these fine things at once, or to one person; but by bits to his brother clergyman, the vicar of St. Margaret's; to Captain Crowle, to the mayor, to the landlady of the Crown Inn, to the ladies in the long room. "You see me as I am, a poor scholar, a humble minister of the church —servus servorum, to use the style and title of the Pope; one who despises wealth." Yet his cassock was of thick silk and his bands were laced. "I live in London because I can there find, when I want it, a lectureship for my preaching, and a library – that of Sion College – for my reading, study, meditation, and writing. I leave behind me, unfinished, my work – my magnum opus– forgive the infirmity natural to man of desiring to live in the memory of men. I confess that I look forward with pleasure to future fame: my 'History of the Early Councils' will be a monument – if I may be permitted so to speak of it – a monument of erudition. I come here by order of my physician. Ladies, this sluggish body, which gives us so much trouble, must be kept in health (as well as in subjection) if we would perform the tasks laid down for us. The waters which I am about to drink will, under Providence, drive away those symptoms which have made my friends, rather than myself, anxious. As for me, what cause have I for anxiety? Why should I not be ready to lay down pen and book, and teach no more?"