The Orange Girl

A CITY OF REFUGE

My last recollection of the counting-house is that of Matthew lying in a heap and shaking his fist, at me, while, behind, my uncle's face looks out amazed upon the spectacle from one door, and the clerks in a crowd contemplate the discomfiture of Mr. Matthew from another door. Then I strode off, I say, like a gamecock after a victory, head erect, cheek flushed, legs straight. Ha! I am always glad that I drubbed my cousin, just once. A righteous drubbing it was, too, if ever there was one. It hanselled the new life. After it, there was no return possible.

And so home—though the house in College Street could no longer be called a home—I now had no home—I was turned into the street. However, I went upstairs to my own room—mine no longer. I looked about. In the cupboard I found a black box in which I placed everything I could call my own: my music; my linen and my clothes. On the wall hung the miniature of my mother. Happily she had not lived to see the banishment of her son: this I put in my pocket. The fiddle I laid in its case. Then with my cudgel under my arm and carrying the fiddle in one hand and the box on my shoulder I descended the stairs—now, I must confess, with a sinking heart—and found myself in the street.

I had in my purse five guineas—the son of a most solid and substantial merchant, and I had no more than five guineas in the world. What could I do to earn a living? Since I had been for two years in my father's counting house I might be supposed to know something of affairs. Alas! I knew nothing. One art or accomplishment I possessed: and one alone. I could play the fiddle. Now that I had to depend upon my playing for a livelihood, I began to ask whether I could play well enough. At all events, I could play vigorously. But the die was cast. I had made my choice, and must make the best of it. Besides, had I not drubbed my cousin Matthew and that, as they say, with authority?

You have heard how my father accused me of intimacy with a person named Shirley, a resident in the Rules of the King's Bench. That charge I could not deny. Indeed, the person named Shirley, by all his friends called Tom, had been of late my master. Every spare hour that I had was spent with him, practising with him and learning from him. He taught a finer style than I could learn from the sailors. When I went into the counting-house I had no longer any spare hours, except in the evening, and then my master was engaged earning his bread in an orchestra. Still I could manage to visit him sometimes on Sunday evenings when my father was generally occupied with friends who loved likewise to limit and make as narrow as they could the mercies of the Almighty.

At this moment I could think of no one except Tom Shirley who could help me or advise me.

I therefore lugged my box and my violin to the Three Cranes, and took boat across to Moldstrand Stairs, from which it is an easy half mile by pleasant lanes, Love Lane and Gravel Lane, past Looman's Pond to St. George's Fields where Tom Shirley lived.

It was a little after noon when I arrived at the house. It was one of three or four cottages standing in a row, every cottage consisting of four or five rooms. They are pleasing retreats, each having a small front garden where lilacs, laburnums, hollyhock, sunflowers, tulips, and other flowers and bushes grow. In front of the garden flows languidly one of the many little streams which cross the fields and meadows of Southwark: a rustic bridge with a single hand-rail crosses the stream.

The region of St. George's Fields, as is very well known, has a reputation which, in fact, is well deserved. The fact that it is covered with shallow ponds, some of which are little better than mere laystalls, causes it to be frequented on Sundays and on summer evenings by the rude and barbarous people who come here to hunt ducks with dogs—a horrid sport: some of them even throw cats into the water and set their dogs at them. The same people come here for prize fights, but they say that the combatants have an understanding beforehand how long the fight is to last: some come for quarter-staff practice: some come for hockey or for football. Outside the Fields there are many taverns and places of entertainment: on the Fields there is at least one, the notorious Dog and Duck. Every evening except in winter these places are full of people who come to dance and drink and sing. Every kind of wickedness is openly practised here: if a man would gamble, here are the companions for him and here are rooms where he can play: if he would meet women as deboshed as himself here they may be found.

It is unfortunate for Southwark and its environs that everything seems to have conspired to give it a bad name. First of all, it was formerly outside the jurisdiction of the City, so that all the villains and criminals of the City got across the water and found refuge here. Next, the government of the place was not single, but divided by the manors, so that a rogue might pass from one manor into another and so escape: thirdly, the Sanctuary of Southwark tolerated after the Reformation at St. Mary Overies, grew to accommodate as great a number as that in Westminster where they only lately pulled down the gray old Tower which looked like a donjon keep rather than the walls enclosing two chapels. I know not whether there was such a tower at Montagu Close, but within my recollection no officer of the law dared to arrest any sanctuary man in Mint Street—their latest refuge: nor did any person with property to lose venture into that street. For first his hat would be snatched off: then his wig: then his silk handkerchief: then he would be hustled, thrown, and kicked: when he was permitted to get up it was without watch, chain, buckles, shoes, lace cravat, ruffles. Fortunate if he was allowed to escape with no more injury. The presence of these villains was alone enough to give the place a bad name. But there was more. Prisons there must be, but in Southwark there were too many. The King's Bench Prison: the Marshal-sea: the Borough Compter: the Clink: the White Lyon. So many prisons in a place so thinly populated produced a saddening effect. And, besides, there are those who live in the Rules, which are themselves a kind of prison but without walls. In another part, along the Embankment, the Show Folk used to live: those who act: those who write plays and songs: those who dance and tumble: mimes, musicians, buffoons: and those who live by the bear-baiting, badger-baiting, bull-baiting, and cock-throwing, which are the favourite sports of Southwark.

These considerations are quite sufficient to account for the evil reputation which clings to the Borough. They do not, however, prevent it from being a place of great resort for those who come up from Kent and Surrey on business, and they do not for obvious reasons prevent the place from being inhabited by the prisoners of the Rules.

When I arrived, Tom Shirley was playing on the harpsichord, his head in a white nightcap, his wig hanging on a nail. As he played, not looking at notes or keys, his face was turned upwards and his eyes were rapt. As one watched him his face changed in expression with the various emotions of the music: no man, certainly, was more moved by music than Tom Shirley. No man, also, could more certainly bring out the very soul of the music, the inner thought of the composer. He played as if he loved playing, which indeed he did whether it was a country dance, or a minuet or an oratorio or a Roman Catholic Mass. It was a fine face, delicate in outline; full of expression: the face of a musician: it lacked the firmness which belongs to one who fights: he was no gladiator in the arena: a face full of sweetness. Everyone loved Tom Shirley. As for age, he was then about five-and-twenty.

I stood at the open door and looked in, listening, for at such moments he heard nothing. There was another door opposite leading to the kitchen, where his wife was engaged in some domestic work. Presently, she lifted her head and saw me. 'Father,' she cried. 'Here is Will!'

He heard that: brought his fingers down with a splendid chord and sprang to his feet. 'Will? In the morning? What is the meaning—why this box?'

'I have come away, Tom. I have left the counting-house for good.'

'What? You have deserted the money bags? You have run away for the sake of music?'

'My father has turned me out.'

'And you have chosen music. Good—good—what could you have done better? Wife, hear this. Will has run away. He will play the fiddle in the orchestra rather than become an Alderman and Lord Mayor.'

'I want to live as you live, Tom.'

'If you can, boy, you shall.' Now it was the humour of Tom to speak of his own cottage and his manner of life as if both were stately and sumptuous. 'Very few,' he added proudly, 'can live as we live.' He looked proudly round. The room was about ten feet square: low, painted drab, without ornament, without curtains: there were a few shelves: a cupboard: a small table: two brass candlesticks, a brass pair of snuffers: four rush-bottomed chairs, and nothing more.

Tom was dressed in an old brown coat with patches on the elbows, the wrists frayed and the buttons gone. To be sure he had a finer coat for the orchestra. His stockings were of worsted, darned in many places: a woollen wrapper was round his neck. Everything proclaimed poverty: of course people who are not poor do not live in the Rules. 'Few,' he repeated, 'are privileged to live as I live.' I have never known whether this was a craze or his humour to pretend that he fared sumptuously: was lodged like a prince: and received the wages of an ambassador. Perhaps it was mere habit; a way of presenting his own life to himself by exaggeration and pretence which he had somehow grown to believe.

'You ask, Will, a thing difficult of achievement.'

'But gradually—little by little. One would never expect it all at once.'

'Ay, there we talk sense. But first, why hath Sir Peter behaved with this (apparent) harshness? I would not judge him hastily. Therefore I say, apparent.'

'Because he found out at last—my cousin Matthew told him—that I came here to play the fiddle. So he gave me the choice—either to give up the counting-house or to give up the music. And I gave up the counting-house, Tom. I don't care what happens so that I get out of the counting-house.'

'Good—lad—good.'

'And I drubbed my cousin—I paid him with his own stick. And here I am.'

He took my hand, his honest face beaming with satisfaction. At that moment, his sister Alice came back from making some purchases in the Borough High Street. 'Alice my dear,' he said, 'Will has been turned out of house and home by his father—sent out into the streets without a penny.'

Alice burst into tears.

When I think of Alice at that moment, my heart swells, my eyes grow humid. She was then fifteen, an age when the child and the woman meet, and one knows not whether to expect the one or the other. When Alice burst into tears it was the child who wept: she had always loved me with a childish unconsciousness: she was only beginning to understand that I was not her brother.

You know how sweet a flower will sometimes spring up in the most unlovely spot. Well: in this place, close to the Dog and Duck, with prodigals and rakes and painted Jezebels always before her eyes, this child grew up sweet and tender and white as the snow. I have never known any girl upon whom the continual sight—not to be concealed—of gross vice produced so little effect: it was as if the eyes of her soul involuntarily closed to the meaning of such things. Such sweetness, such purity, was stamped upon her face then as afterwards. Never, surely, was there a face that showed so plain and clear to read that the thoughts behind it were not earthly or common.

'It is the soul of music that possesses her,' said her brother once. 'She has imbibed that soul day by day. Will, 'tis a saintly child. Sometimes I fear that she may be carried away like Elijah.'

Well, when I saw those tears, I was seized with a kind of joyful compassion and, so to speak, happy shame, to think that those tears were for me. I drew her gently and kissed her.

'Why, nothing better could have happened to him. Thou little simpleton,' said her brother. Warming up with his subject, he became eloquent. 'He shall do much better—far better—than if he had stayed in the counting-house. He shall not be weighed down with a load of riches: he shall have to work in order to live—believe me, Will, Art must be forced by necessity: where there is no necessity there is no Art: when riches creep in, Art becomes a toy. Because he must work, therefore he will be stimulated to do great things. He shall never set his mind upon growing rich: he shall remain poor.'

'Not too poor,' said his wife gently. Indeed her poor shabby dress showed what she meant.

'Peace, woman. He shall be poor, I say. Happy lad! He shall be poor. He shall never have money in a stocking, and he shall never want any. He shall live like the sparrows, from day to day, fed by the bounty of the Lord.'

'Who loveth the Dog and Duck,' said his wife.

The husband frowned. 'To sum up, Will, thy lot shall be the happiest that the world can give. What?' He lifted his hand and his eyes grew brighter. 'For the musician the curse of labour is remitted: for him there is no longing after riches: for him there is no flattery of great men: for him there is no meanness; for him there are no base arts: for him there is no wriggling: for him there are no back stairs: for him there is no patron.—In a word, Will, the musician is the only free man in the world.'

'In the Rules, you mean, my dear.' This was his wife's correction.

'Will,' said Alice, 'shall you really become like Tom?'

'Truly, Alice, if I can.'

'Wife,' said Tom. 'Will shall stay with us. He can sleep in the garret. We must find a mattress somewhere.'

'Nay, but I must pay my footing. See, Tom. I have five guineas.' I showed this mine of wealth. He took one and gave it to his wife.

'Aha!' he laughed. 'Buy him a mattress and a blanket, wife. And this evening we will have a bowl of punch. Will, we shall fare like Kings and like the Great ones of the Earth.'

A WAY TO LIVE

I think that Tom Shirley was the most good-natured man in the whole world: the most ready to do anything he could for anybody: always cheerful: always happy: partly, I suppose, because he looked at everything through spectacles of imagination. He joined, however, to his passion for music another which belonged to a lower world: namely, for punch. Yet he was not an intemperate man: he showed neither purple cheeks, nor a double chin, nor a swollen neck, nor a rubicund nose—all of which were common sights on Change and in the streets of London. The reason why he displayed no signs of drink was that he could seldom gratify his passion for punch by reason of his poverty, and that in eating, which, I believe, also contributes its share to the puffing out of the neck and the painting of the nose, such as may be seen on Change, he was always as moderate, although he thought every meal a feast, as became his slender means.

I do not know how he got into the King's Bench, but the thing is so easy that one marvels that so many are able to keep out. They put him in and kept him there for a time, when he was enabled to obtain the privilege of the Rules. He was, as he boasted, always rich, because he thought he was rich. His wife took from him, every week, the whole of his wages, otherwise he would have given them away.

At one o'clock Alice laid the cloth and we had dinner. Tom lifted the knife and fork and held it over the cold boiled beef as if fearing to mar that delicate dish by a false or clumsy cut. 'Is there anything,' he said, 'more delicious to the palate than cold boiled beef? It must be cut delicately and with judgment—with judgment, Will.' He proceeded to exercise judgment. There was a cabbage on the table. 'This delicacy,' he said, 'is actually grown for us—for us—in the gardens of Lambeth Marsh. Remark the crispness of it: there is a solid heart for you: there is colour: there is flavour.' All this was, I remember, the grossest flattery. 'Oat cake,' he said, breaking a piece. 'Some, I believe, prefer wheaten bread. They do wrong. Viands must not be judged by their cost but by their fitness to others on the table, and by the season. Remember, Will, that with cold boiled beef, oat cake is your only eating.' He poured out some beer into a glass and held it up to the light. 'Watch the sparkles: hear the humming: strong October this'—it was the most common small beer—'have a care, Will, have a care.' And so on, turning the simple meal into a banquet.

His wife and sister received these extravagances without a smile. They were used to them. The latter, at least, believed that they were the simple truth. The poor girl was innocently proud of her humble home, this cottage on St. George's Fields, within the Rules.

After dinner, we talked. As the subject was Music Tom was somewhat carried away; yet there was method in his madness.

'I said, lad, that there would be no Art if there were no necessity. 'Tis Poverty alone makes men became musicians and painters and poets. Where can you find a rich man who was ever a great artist? I am no scholar, but I have asked scholars this question, and they agree with me that riches destroy Art. Hardly may Dives become even a Connoisseur. He may become a general or a statesman: we do not take all from him: we leave him something—but not the best—that we keep for ourselves—we keep Art for ourselves. As for a rich merchant becoming a musician or a painter—it is impossible: one laughs at the very thought.'

'Well, that danger is gone, Tom, so far as I am concerned.'

'Ay. The reason I take it, is that Art demands the whole man—not a bit of him—the whole man—all his soul, all his mind, all his thoughts, all his strength. You must give all that to music, Will.'

'I ask nothing better.'

'Another reason is that Art raises a man's thoughts to a higher level than is wanted for Trade. It is impossible for a man's mind to soar or to sink according as he thinks of art or trade. You will remember, Will, for your comfort, that your mind is raised above the City.'

'I will remember.'

'Well, then, let us think about what is best to be done.'

He pondered a little. Then he smiled.

'Put pride in pocket, Will. Now what would you like?'

'To write great music.'

'A worthy ambition. It has been my own. It is not for me to say whether my songs, which are nightly sung at the Dog and Duck, are great music or not. Posterity may judge. Lad, it is one thing to love music—and another thing to compose it. The latter is given to few: the former to many. It may be that it is thy gift. But I know not. Meantime, we must live.'

'I will do anything.'

'Again—put pride in pocket. Now there is a riverside tavern at Bermondsey. It is a place for sailors and their Dolls. A rough and coarse place it is, at best. They want a fiddler from six o'clock till ten every night, and later on Saturdays.'

I heard with a shiver. To play in a sailors' tavern! It was my father's prophecy.

'Everybody must begin, Will. What? A sailors' tavern is no place for the son of a City merchant, is it? But that is gone. Thou art now nobody's son—a child of the gutter—the world is thine oyster—free of all ties—with neither brother nor cousin to say thee nay. Lucky dog! What? We must make a beginning—I say—in the gutter.'

His eyes twinkled and smiled, and I perceived without being told that he meant to try my courage. So, with a rueful countenance and a foolish sense of shame, I consented to sit in the corner of a sanded room in a common riverside tavern and to make music for common sailors and their sweethearts.

'Why,' said Tom, 'that is well. And now, my lad, remember. There are no better judges of a fiddle than sailors. They love their music as they love their lobscouse, hot and strong and plenty. Give it elbow, Will. They are not for fine fingering or for cunning strokes and effects—they like the tune to come out full and sweet. They will be thy masters. As for dancing, they like the time to be marked as well as the tune. Find out how they like to take it. There is one time for a hornpipe and another for a jig. As for pay——'

I will not complete the sentence. For such as myself there must be a Day of Small Things. But one need not confess how very small these things have been.

Thus it was that I found an Asylum—a City of Refuge—in the Rules of the King's Bench, when I was turned out by my own people. And in this way I became that despised and contemptible object, a Common Fiddler. I played, not without glory, every night, to a company as low as could be found. At least, I thought so at the time. Later on, it is true, I found a lower company still. And I dare say there are assemblies of men and women even lower. My fellows, at least, were honest, and their companions were, at least, what the men had made them.

We settled the business that very afternoon, walking over to Bermondsey. The landlord said I was very young, but if I could fiddle he did not mind that, only it must be remembered in the pay. So I was engaged to begin the next day. In the evening I went with Tom to the Dog and Duck where he played first fiddle in the Orchestra, and sat in the musicians' gallery. About this place more anon. At twelve o'clock the music ceased and I walked home with Tom. I remember, it was then a fine clear night in September: the wind blew chill across the marshes: it had come up with the flow of the river: the moon was riding high: a strange elation possessed my soul: for my independence was beginning: four guineas in my pocket: and a place with so many shillings a week to live upon: nothing to do but to work at music: and to live with the best-hearted man in the whole world.

We got home. Alice had gone to bed. Tom's wife was sitting up for us, the bowl of punch was ready for us, not too big a bowl, because Tom's weakness where punch was concerned was well known. He drank my success in one glass: my future operas and oratorios in the second: my joyful independence in the third: and my happy release in the fourth. That finished the bowl and we went to bed.

LOVE AND MUSIC

You need not be told how I lived for the next three or four years. I took what came. Pride remained in pocket. I fiddled a wedding-party to church and home again. I fiddled the Company of Fellowship Porters through the streets when they held their yearly feast. I fiddled for sailors; I fiddled at beanfeasts; I fiddled for Free Masons; I fiddled in taverns; I fiddled here and there and everywhere, quite unconcerned, even though I was playing in the gallery of a City company's hall, and actually saw my cousin sitting in state among the guests at the feast below, and knew that he saw me and rejoiced at the sight, in his ignorance of the consolations of music.

Nothing in those days came amiss to me. One who makes music for his livelihood has no cause to be ashamed of playing for anyone. It does not seem an occupation such as one would choose, to spend the evening in a chair, stuck in a corner out of the way, in a stinking room, for rough fellows to dance hornpipes: the work does not lift up the soul to the level which Tom Shirley claimed for the musician. But this was only the pot-boiling work. I had the mornings to myself, when I could practise and attempt composition. Besides, at eighteen, the present, if one belongs to a calling which has a career, is of very little importance: the real life lies before: the boy lives for the future. I was going, in those days, to be a great composer like Handel. I was going to write oratorios such as his: majestic, where majesty was wanted: tender, where love and pity must be depicted: devout, where piety was called for. I would write, besides, in my ambition, such things as were written by Purcell and Arne: anthems for the church: songs and madrigals and rounds and catches such as those with which my patron Tom Shirley delighted his world.

The profession of music is one which can only be followed by those who have the gift of music. That is the definition of any Art: it can only be followed by those who have the gift of that Art. In any other calling a man may serve after a fashion, who hath not been called thereto. Many men, for example, are divines who have neither learning nor eloquence nor—the Lord help them!—religion. Many lawyers have no love for the law. Many merchants hate the counting-house. But in music no one can serve at all unless he is a musician born. He who, without the gift, would try to enter the profession breaks down at the outset, seeing that he cannot even learn to play an instrument with feeling, ease, or judgment. Nay, there are distinct ranks of music, to each of which one is raised by Nature, as much as by study. Thus, you have at the bottom, the rank and file, namely, those who can play a single instrument: next, those who can compose and make simple music for songs, in which all that is wanted is a tuneful and spirited air with an ordinary accompaniment: next those who understand harmony and can make music of a higher character, such as anthems, part-songs, and so forth. Lastly, you have the composer in whose brains lies the knowledge of every instrument in the orchestra. He is the King of musicians: from him come the noble oratorios which delight our age and lift our souls to Heaven: from him come the masses which are sung—I have the scores of several—in Cathedrals of Roman Catholic countries. It is not for an Englishman to admire aught that belongs to Rome: but we must at least concede to the Roman Catholic the possession of noble music.

This, then, was my ambition. For four years I continued to live with my friend Tom Shirley. I held no communication with my father or any of my own people. None of them made any attempt at reconciliation. I believe they were honestly ashamed of me. The new friends I made were good and faithful: musical people have ever kindly hearts, and are loyal to each other: they do not backbite: there is no room for envy where one man plays the fiddle and another the cornet: we are all a company of brothers.

The time came when it was no longer necessary for me to play at taverns for the sailors: when I was no longer compelled to attend weddings. I obtained, one after the other, two posts, neither of which was a very great thing, but both together made it possible for me to live in some comfort. The first was that of organist at St. George's in the Borough. I had to attend the service and to play the organ twice on Sunday: the week day services and the Gift Lectures were conducted without any singing. The Church contains, I believe, the most fashionable congregation of South London, and therefore the most critical. I do not think, however, that, while I sat in the organ-loft, they had any reason to complain either of music or of choir. There sat with me in the organ-loft, Alice, who possessed a sweet, clear, and strong voice: her brother Tom, who brought into the choir an excellent tenor: Mr. Ramage, one of my father's clerks, who lodged behind the Marshal-sea, gave us a bass of indifferent quality, though he was now past fifty. Half a dozen boys and girls from the Charity School, of no great account for voices, made up our choir. I believe it was better than the average, and I think that people came on Sunday morning on purpose to hear the organ and the singing.

Mr. Ramage, or Ramage, as he was called in the Counting-house, where no title is allowed to any below the rank of partner or partner's son, kept me acquainted with events in College Street and on the wharf. My father, it was understood, never mentioned my name: the business of the Firm was never more flourishing: Mr. Matthew was constantly called in for consultations. 'And oh! Master Will,' my old friend always concluded, 'be reconciled. What is it—to give up playing the organ at Church? Why—it is nothing. Someone else will play while you sit in state in your red velvet pew below. Give way to your father. He is a hard man, but he is just.'

It also appeared from Mr. Ramage's information that it was perfectly well known by the clerks and by Mr. Matthew, who doubtless told my father, the ways by which I had been making a living: I had been seen by one marching ahead of a sailor's wedding-party: by another fiddling in the Bermondsey Tavern: by a third in the Gallery of a City Company Hall. The Counting-house down to the messengers was humiliated: there was but one feeling among the clerks: I had brought disgrace upon the House.

'They are sorry, Master Will, for your father's sake. It is hard for him: so proud a man—with so much to be proud of—a quarter of a million, some say. Think how hard it is for him.'

'It is harder for me Ramage,' I replied, 'to be driven to fiddle for sailors, when all I ask is to be allowed to follow music in peace. However, tell the clerks that I am sorry to have disgraced them.'

Disgraced the clerks! What did I say? Why, theirs is the lowest kind of work that the world can find for men. They were disgraced because their Master's son played the fiddle for a living. But I could not afford to consider their opinions.

Ramage knew nothing about my other place, or his entreaties would have been more fervent. I had but one answer, however. I could not give up the only work that I cared for, even to be reconciled to my father. Why, I was born for music. Shall a man fly in the face of Providence, and scorn the gifts with which he is endowed?

My other place was none other than second fiddle, Tom Shirley being the first fiddle, of the Dog and Duck.

I have mentioned the Pleasure Gardens south of the River. There are, as Londoners know very well, a great many such gardens, all alike in most respects. That is to say, there is in every one of them an avenue or walk, lined by trees which at night are festooned by thousands of lights in coloured glass lamps hanging from tree to tree. There is also in most a piece of water with swans or ducks upon it, and all round it arbours where the company take tea or punch or wine. There is a tavern where drink may be had: suppers are served in the evening: there is a floor for dancing in the open air with a place for the band; and there is a Long Room with an organ at one end where the company promenade and listen, and where on hot nights the band and the singers perform. In many gardens there is also a bowling-green: there is sometimes a swimming bath, and in most there is a chalybeate spring the water of which is warranted to cure anything, but especially rheumatism, gout, and the King's evil.

Every one of these gardens employs an orchestra, and engages the services of singers. The number of musicians employed is therefore considerable. There are certainly in the south of London alone more than a dozen Gardens large enough to have a band. Beside the Dog and Duck, there are the Temple of Flora: the Lambeth Wells: the Cumberland Gardens: Vauxhall Gardens: Bermondsey Spa: St. Helena Gardens: Finch's Grotto: Cupid's Gardens: Restoration Spring Gardens—is not that twelve? And there are more. So that it is not difficult for a young man who can play any instrument tolerably to get a place in the orchestra of some Garden.

One would not choose such a position if Fortune gave one a choice. At the Dog and Duck there are visitors to whose pleasure we should be ashamed of ministering: people whose proper place is the House of Correction or Bridewell: they are allowed to attend these gardens with friends who should also be denied entrance: they make the company noisy and disorderly. We gave them music that was a great deal better than they deserved: it was thrown away upon the majority: we gave them songs that were innocent and tender—Tom Shirley wrote and composed them himself: we also had to give them other songs more suited to their gross and grovelling tastes.

It was part of Tom's humour to speak of the audience at the Dog and Duck as the most polite, fashionable, and aristocratic assembly in the world. He declared that their taste in music was excellent: their attention that of a connoisseur: and their appreciation of his own songs all that he could desire. I asked him once how he reconciled these things with their delight in the comic songs which were also provided for them. 'The aristocracy,' he said, 'must from time to time, unbend: they must from time to time, laugh: they laugh and they unbend when we give them a song to which in their more polite moments they would refuse to listen.' I knew very well that the company was chiefly composed of deboshed profligates: prentices who daily robbed their masters in order to come to the gardens: young gentlemen from the country; prodigal sons from the Temple and Lincoln's Inn; and tradesmen who were dissipating their capital. If good music was played they talked and laughed: at the singing of good songs they walked about or left the open platform for the dark lanes of the garden. 'You are lucky, Will,' said Tom. 'To play for such an audience brings good luck, with name and fame and riches.'

It brought me fifteen shillings a week. And as for name and fame I never heard of either.

I did not propose to write my own history, but that of a woman to whom you have already seen me conversing. Yet my own history must be understood before hers can be related. You have been told how for my obstinate adherence to music I was turned out of my father's house: how I found a refuge: how I earned my livelihood by playing the fiddle. Now, before I come to the events which connected my fortunes with those of the lady whom I call my mistress—and that with my wife's consent—I must tell one or two events which befell me. The first of them was my courtship and my marriage. In the courtship there was no obstacle: the course of true love ran smoothly: in my marriage there were no regrets: no discords: always a full deep current of affection on both sides. A simple, plain story, in which nothing happened, so far: would to Heaven that nothing had happened, afterwards.

When a young man and girl live under the same roof: when they share the same interests: when they have the same affections—Alice herself could not love her brother more than I did: when the home is happy in spite of poverty and its restrictions: when the hearts of the two go out to each other spontaneously, then the time must come when they will resolve upon becoming brother and sister or declared and open lovers.

When I think of this time, this truly happy time, I sometimes feel as if we were too hurried over it. I sat beside Alice every morning at breakfast and at dinner: I played to her: I composed songs for her: I even wrote verses for the music—I have some of them still, and really, though I do not pretend to be a poet, there are things in them which I admire. Poets always speak of the warblers in the grove: so did I. Love, which rhymes to grove, always burns and flames—did so in my verses. As to the rhymes, I abolished the first and third, which was a great relief. Without the necessity of rhyming one could easily become a poet.

I say that the situation being so pleasant and so happy, I might have prolonged it: but there comes a time when a man must take the last step. The uncertainty is sweet. Can she love me? Will she perhaps say nay? Yet the pleasing pain, the charming smart, the raptured flames—I quote from my own verses which were really like many that I have seen used in songs—become in time too much: one must perforce go on to secure the happiness beyond.

In the morning, when the weather was fine, we would walk abroad among the fields and gardens that lie stretched out behind the river bank: some of them are pretty gardens, each with its hedge and bushes filled with flowers in the summer: garden houses stand about here and there: windmills vary the landskip: the lanes are shaded by trees: at the end of one is a great stone barn, formerly part of King Richard's Palace, of which not another stone is left. Beside the river are Lambeth Palace and Lambeth Church with a few fishermen's cottages. Over this rural place we strayed at our will, now among the lanes; picking wild flowers; recalling scraps of songs; listening to the skylark, while the fresh breeze coming up the river with the tide fanned Alice's cheek and heightened the soft colour which was one of her charms. Sometimes we left the fields and walked along the high Embankment watching the laden barges slowly going up or down and the sailing tilt-boats bound for Richmond: or the fishermen in mid-stream with their nets: or the wherries plying with their fares and the swans: admiring, in a word, the life and animation of the river at Westminster and above it. Chiefly, however, Alice loved the fields, where in the morning we were always alone save for a gardener here and there at work. Since the life that she saw around her was such as she saw—made up of debtors' prisons, noisy duck-hunters, prize-fighters and drunken profligates, what wonder if she loved to linger where she was apart from the vileness of men and women? To meditate: to muse: to sing all alone, for my companionship counted nothing: was her greatest joy. So it has continued: even now she loves to wander alone beneath the trees—they are other trees under another sky—and lift up her voice to Heaven, which answers by giving her thoughts, always new and always holy.

It was in the middle of May, the poet's month, when we were thus roaming in the fields. Alice carried a handful of hawthorn. She sang as she went. Dear Heart! how she sang! Yet I know not what. It was Prayer: it was Praise: it was Adoration: it was Worship: I know not what she sang. The larks were dumb because they could not sing with her.

It was the time of which I have spoken—the time of uncertainty. Never had Alice looked so heavenly sweet: she carried her hat by the strings: her hair fell about her shoulders—fair, soft hair, like silk, with a touch of gold in it: her eyes gazed upwards when the light clouds flew across the blue, as if they were things of this world trying to turn her eyes and thoughts away from the things of Heaven. I could endure the doubt no longer. I laid my arm about her waist: the song was troubled: her eyes dropped. 'Oh!' she said. 'What wilt thou?' I drew her closer. The song broke off. I kissed her head, her brow, her lips. We said nothing. She sang no more. But the larks began their hymns of joy: the clouds passed: the sun came out in splendour: the hedges seemed all to burst together into blossom.

Thus it was—so easily—so sweetly—did we pass into the condition of lovers. Yet we had been lovers all the time.

WEDDING BELLS AND THE BOOK OF THE PLAY

We were married without delay. Why should we wait? I should be no richer for waiting and time would be passing. We were married, therefore. It was impossible from time to time we should not be reminded of the lowly station in which we lived. When one of my cousins was married, what preparations! what feasts arranged and provided! What troops of guests! What a noble company in the Church! What crowds afterwards—the street filled with beggars come for the broken victuals: the butchers with their din unmusical of marrow-bones and cleavers: the band of music playing outside: the acclamation of the crowd when the bride was brought back from church: the rooms full of guests all with wedding favours: the loving-cup passing from hand to hand: the kissing of the bridesmaids: the merriment and coquetry over the bride-cake and the wedding-ring! All this I remembered and it made me sad for a moment. Not for long, for beside me stood a bride sweeter far than was any cousin of mine: and I was a musician; and I was independent.

We walked over the Fields to St. George's Church and were there married at ten o'clock in the morning. Tom gave away his sister: Alice had no bridesmaids: I had no groomsmen: there was no crowd of witnesses: there was no loving-cup. We were married in an empty church, and after marriage we walked home again to Tom's cottage.

He sat down and played a wedding march, of his own composition, made for the occasion. 'There!' he said, 'that is better than a wedding feast—yet there shall be a wedding feast and of the best.'

It was served at noon: there was a duck pie: a pair of soles: a cowslip tart—a very dainty dish: and fried sweetbreads. After dinner there was a bottle of port.

'Will,' said my brother-in-law, taking the last glass in the bottle, 'who would be one of those unhappy creatures who cannot be married without crowds and noise and a great company? Here are we, contented with ourselves: we have been married: we have had a royal banquet—your sweetbreads, wife, were a morsel for a king. You are contented, Will?'

'Quite.' For I was holding Alice by the hand.

'You never regret the flesh-pots?'

'Never—I have forgotten them.' This was not quite true, but it passed.

'I have sometimes thought'—he looked from me to Alice and from Alice to me again—'that there might have been regrets.'

'There can be none, now.'

'Good. Hands upon it, brother. We shall miss Alice, shall we not, wife? But she will not be far off. So.' A tear stood in his eye while he kissed his sister. 'Now,' he said, 'enough of sentiment. The day is before us. I have got a man to take my place to-night and another to take yours. On such an occasion, Will, we must not spare and grudge. We will see the sights of London and then—then—none of your Pleasure Gardens—we will—but I have a surprise for you.'

We sallied forth. Never was a wedding-day kept in so strange a fashion. We took oars at the Falcon Stairs to the Tower. Now Alice had spent all her life in or about the Rules of the King's Bench, but she had never seen London City or the Sights of London. To her everything was new. We showed her the Tower and the wild beasts and the arms and armour and the Royal Crown and Sceptre. After the Tower, we walked along Thames Street where are the Custom House and Billingsgate Market and the Steelyard and the Monument. We climbed up the Monument for the sake of the view: it was a clear day, and we could discern in the distance Lambeth Palace and the Church and perhaps even, one was not sure, the cottage which we had taken on the Bank. After this we went to see the Guildhall and the famous Giants: then the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange: we looked at the shops in Cheapside: they are the richest shops in the world, but the mercers and haberdashers do not put out in the window their costly stuffs to tempt the shoplifter. 'You must imagine, Alice,' I told her, 'the treasures that lie within: some time if we ever become rich you shall come here and buy to your heart's content.' Then we entered St. Paul's, that solemn and magnificent pile: here we heard part of the afternoon service, the boys in their white surplices singing like angels, so that the tears rolled down my girl's face—they were tears of praise and prayer, not of repentance. From St. Paul's we walked up the narrow street called the Old Bailey and saw the outside of Newgate. Now had we known what things we were to do and to suffer in that awful place, I think we should have prayed for death. But Heaven mercifully withholds the future.