Walter Besant - The Lady of Lynn

"There must be a long room for those who wish to walk about and to converse – with an orchestra."

"There must be public breakfasts and suppers."

"We shall want horns to play in the evening."

"We must have glass lamps of variegated colours to hang among the trees."

"I will put up the pump room," said the doctor, "in my garden, over the well."

"We must look to our lodgings. The beds in our inns are for the most part rough hewn boards on trestles with a flock bed full of knobs and sheets that look like leather. The company will look for bedsteads and feather beds."

"The ladies will ask for curtains. We must give them what they are accustomed to enjoy."

"We must learn the fashionable dance."

"We must talk like beaux and dress like the gentlefolk of Westminster."

The captain looked on, meanwhile, whispering in my ear, from time to time. "Samuel is a liar," he said. "I know him to be a liar. Yet why should he lie about a thing of so much importance? If he tells the truth, Jack – I know not – I misdoubt the fellow – yet – again – he may tell the truth – And why should he lie, I say? Then – one knows not – among the company we may even find a husband for the girl. As for taking her to London – but we shall see."

So he shook his head, not wholly carried away like the rest, but with a certain amount of hope. And then, waiting for a moment when the talk flagged a bit, he spoke.

"Gentlemen, if this news is true – and surely Samuel would not invent it, then the old town is to have another great slice of luck. We have our shipping and our trade: these have made many of us rich and have given an honest livelihood to many more. The spa should bring in, as the doctor has told us, wealth by another channel. I undertake to assure you that we shall rise to the occasion. The town shall show itself fit to receive and to entertain the highest company. We tarpaulins are too old to learn the manners of fashion. But we have men of substance among us who will lay out money with such an object: we have gentlemen of family in the country round: we have young fellows of spirit," he clapped me on the shoulder, "who will keep up the gaieties: and, gentlemen, we have maidens among us – as blooming as any in the great world. We shall not be ashamed of ourselves – or of our girls."

These words created a profound sigh of satisfaction. The men of substance would rise to the occasion.

Before the bowl was out a committee was appointed, consisting of Captain Crowle, the vicar of St. Margaret's, the curate of St. Nicholas – the two clergymen being appointed as having imbibed at the University of Cambridge some tincture of the fashionable world – and the doctor. This important body was empowered to make arrangements for the reception and for the accommodation and entertainment of the illustrious company expected and promised. It was also empowered to circulate in the country round about news of the extraordinary discovery and to invite all the rheumatic and the gouty: the asthmatic and everybody afflicted with any kind of disease to repair immediately to Lynn Regis, there to drink the sovereign waters of the spa.

"It only remains, gentlemen," said the doctor in conclusion, "that I myself should submit the water of my well to an examination." He did not think it necessary to inform the company that he had received from Samuel Semple an analysis of the water stating the ingredients and their proportions as made by the anonymous physician of London. "Should it prove – of which I have little doubt – that the water is such as has been described by my learned brother in medicine, I shall inform you of the fact."

It was a curious coincidence, though the committee of reception were not informed of the fact, that the doctor's analysis exactly agreed with that sent to him.

It was a memorable evening. For my own part, – I know not why – during the reading of the letter my heart sank lower and lower. It was the foreboding of evil. Perhaps it was caused by my knowledge of Samuel of whom I will speak presently. Perhaps it was the thought of seeing the girl whom I loved, while yet I had no hope of winning her, carried off by some sprig of quality who would teach her to despise her homely friends, the master mariners young and old. I know not the reason. But it was a foreboding of evil and it was with a heavy heart that I repaired to the quay and rowed myself back to the ship in the moonlight.

They were going to drink to the next voyage of The Lady of Lynn . Why, the lady herself, not her ship, was about to embark on a voyage more perilous – more disastrous – than that which awaited any of her ships. Cruel as is the ocean I would rather trust myself – and her – to the mercies of the Bay of Biscay at its wildest – than to the tenderness of the crew who were to take charge of that innocent and ignorant lady.

This was the beginning of the famous year. I say famous because, to me and to certain others, it was certainly a year eventful, while to the people of the town and the county round it was the year of the spa which began, ran a brief course, and terminated, all in one summer.

Let me therefore speak for a little about the place where these things happened. It is not a mushroom or upstart town of yesterday but on the other hand a town of venerable antiquity with many traditions which may be read in books by the curious. It is important on account of its trade though it is said that in former days its importance was much greater.

I have sailed over many seas: I have put in at many ports: I have taken in cargoes of many countries – the ways of sailors I have found much the same everywhere. And as for the food and the drink and the buildings I say that Lynn is behind none. Certainly the port of London whether at Wapping or at Limehouse or Shadwell cannot show anything so fine as the market place of Lynn or St. Margaret's church or our customhouse. Nor have I found anywhere, people more civil of speech and more obliging and well disposed, than in my own town; in which, apart from the sailors and their quarters, the merchants and shipowners are substantial: trade is always brisk: the port is always lively: continually there is a coming and a going: sometimes, week after week, one ship arrives and another ship puts out: the yards are always busy: the hammer and the anvil resound all day long: carpenters, rope makers, boat builders, block makers, sail makers, all the people wanted to fit out a ship – they say that a ship is like a woman, in always wanting something – are at work without intermission all the year round from five in the morning till eight in the evening. They stand at good wages: they live well: they dress warm: they drink of the best. It is a city of great plenty. Wine there is of the most generous, to be had at reasonable price – have I not myself brought home cargoes from Lisbon of Spanish and Portuguese – strong and heady – rich and sweet; and from Bordeaux of right claret? All the things that come from abroad are here in abundance, brought hither by our ships and distributed by our barges up the river and its tributaries through eight countries at least, serving the towns of Peterborough, Ely, Stamford, Bedford, St. Ives, Huntingdon, St. Neots, Northampton, Cambridge, Bury St. Edmund's, and Thetford. We send them not only wine but also coals (which come to us, sea-borne, from Newcastle), deal and timber from Norway and the Baltic, iron and implements; sugar, lemons, spices, tea (but there is little of that infusion taken in the county), turpentine, and I know not what: and we receive for export wheat, barley, oats and grain of all kinds.

In other places you may hear lamentations that certain imported luxuries have given out: the lemons will fail so that the punch is spoiled: or the nutmegs give out – which is a misfortune for the pudding: or the foreign wine has been all consumed. Our cellars and our warehouses, however, are always full, there is always wine of every kind: there are always stores of everything that the cook can want for his most splendid banquet.