The Orange Girl Part 2

I AM TURNED OUT INTO THE WORLD

In the year 1760 or thereabouts, everybody knew the name of Sir Peter Halliday, Merchant. The House in which Sir Peter was the Senior Partner possessed a fleet of West Indiamen which traded between the Port of London and Jamaica, Barbadoes, and the other English Islands, taking out all kinds of stuffs, weapons, implements, clothing, wine, silks, gloves, and everything else that the planters could want, and returning laden with sugar in bags, mahogany, arrack, and whatever else the islands produce. Our wharf was that which stands next to the Tower stairs: the counting-house was on the wharf: there the clerks worked daily from seven in the morning till eight at night. As a boy it was my delight to go on board the s.h.i.+ps when they arrived. There I ran up and down the companion: into the dark lower deck where the mids.h.i.+pmen messed and slept among the flying c.o.c.kroaches, which buzzed into their faces and the rats which ran over them and the creatures which infest a s.h.i.+p in hot lat.i.tudes and come on board with the gunny-bags, such as centipedes, scorpions, and great spiders. And I would stand and watch the barges when they came alongside to receive the cargo. Then with a yeo-heave-oh!

and a chantey of the sailors, mostly meaningless, yet pleasant to hear, they tossed the bags of sugar into the barge as if they were loaves of bread, and the casks of rum as if they had been pint pots. Or I would talk to the sailors and hear stories of maroon n.i.g.g.e.rs and how the planters engaged the sailors to go ash.o.r.e in search of these fierce runaways and shoot them down in the mountains: and stories of shark and barra coota: of hurricanos and islands where men had been put ash.o.r.e to starve and die miserably: of pirates, of whom there have always been plenty in the Caribbean Sea since that ocean was first discovered.

Strange things these sailors brought home with them: coral, pink and white: preserved flying-fish: creatures put in spirits: carved cocoanuts: everybody knows the treasures of the sailor arrived in port.

This, I say, was my delight as a boy: thus I learned to think of things outside the narrow bounds of the counting-house and the City walls.

Marvellous it is to mark how while the Pool is crammed with s.h.i.+ps from all parts of the world, the Londoner will go on in ignorance of any world beyond the walls of the City or the boundaries of his parish.

Therefore, I say, it was better for me than the study of Moll's Geography to converse with these sailors and to listen to their adventures.

Another thing they taught me. It is well known that on board every s.h.i.+p there is one, at least, who can play the fiddle. A s.h.i.+p without a fiddler is robbed of the sailors' chief joy. Now, ever since I remember anything I was always making music: out of the whistle pipe: the tw.a.n.ging Jews' harp: the comb and paper: but above all out of the fiddle. I had a fiddle: I found it in a garret of our house in Great College Street. I made a sailor tell me how to practise upon it: whenever one of our s.h.i.+ps put into port I made friends with the fiddler on board and got more lessons; so that I was under instruction, in this rude manner for the greater part of the year, and before I was twelve I could play anything readily and after the fas.h.i.+on, rough and vigorous, of the sailors with whom strength of arm reckons before style.

I belong to a family which for nearly two hundred years have been Puritans. Some of them were preachers and divines under Cromwell. Their descendants retained the strict observance of opinions which forbid mirth and merriment, even among young people. Although they conformed to the Church of England, they held that music of all kinds: the theatre: dancing at the a.s.sembly: reading poetry and tales: and wearing of fine dress must be sinful, because they call attention from the salvation of the soul, the only thing about which the sinner ought to think. Why it was worse to let the mind dwell upon music than upon money-getting I know not, nor have I ever been able to discover. It will be understood, however, that ours was a strict household. It consisted of my father, myself, a housekeeper and five servants, all G.o.dly. We had long prayers, morning and evening; we attended the Church of St. Stephen Walbrook, instead of our own parish church of St. Michael Paternoster, because there was no organ in it: we went to church on Sundays twice: and twice in the week to the Gift Lectures, of which there were two. My father was a stern man, of great dignity. When he was Lord Mayor he was greatly feared by malefactors. He was of a full habit of body, with a large red face, his neck swollen into rolls. Like all merchants in his position he drank a great deal of port, of which he possessed a n.o.ble cellar.

I have often wondered why it was never discovered that I practised the fiddle in the garret. To be sure, it was only at those hours when my father was on the wharf. When I had the door shut and the windows open the maids below thought, I suppose, that the sounds came from the next house. However that may be, I was never found out.

Now this fondness for music produced an unfortunate result. The sight of a book of arithmetic always filled me with a disgust unspeakable. The sight of a book of accounts inspired me with loathing. The daily aspect of my father's clerks all sitting in a row on high stools, and all driving the quill with heads bending over the paper, made me, even as a child, believe theirs to be the most miserable lot that Fortune has to offer her most unhappy victims. I still think so. Give me any other kind of life: make me a bargee: a coal-heaver: a sailor before the mast: an apothecary: a schoolmaster's usher: in all these occupations there will be something to redeem the position: but for the accountant there is nothing. All day long he sits within four walls: his pay is miserable: his food is insufficient: when in the evening he crawls away, there is only time left for him to take a little supper and go to his miserable bed.

Imagine, therefore, my loathing when I understood that at the age of sixteen I was to take my place among these unfortunates, and to work my way towards the succession which awaited me--the partners.h.i.+p held by my father--by becoming a clerk like unto these others whom I had always pitied and generally despised. From that lot, however, there was no escape. All the partners, from father to son, had so worked their way.

The reason of this rule was that the young men in this way acquired a knowledge of the business in all its branches before they were called upon to direct its enterprise, and to enter upon new ventures. I daresay that it was a good practical rule. But in my own case I found it almost intolerable.

I was unlike the clerks in one or two respects: I had good food and plenty of it. And I received no salary.

I had a cousin, named Matthew, son of my father's younger brother and partner, Alderman Paul Halliday, Citizen and Lorimer, who had not yet pa.s.sed the chair. Matthew, though his father was the younger son, was three or four years older than myself. He, therefore, mounted the clerks' stool so many years before me. He was a young man with a face and carriage serious and thoughtful (to all appearance) beyond his years. He had a trick of dropping his eyes while he talked: his face was always pale and his hands were always clammy. Other young men who had been at school with him spoke of him with disrespect and even hatred, but I know not why. In a word, Matthew had no friends among those of his own age. On the other hand, the older people thought highly of him. My father spoke with praise of his capacity for business and of his industry, and of the grasp of detail which he had already begun to show.

As for me, I could never like my cousin, and what happened when I was about eighteen years of age gave me no reason to like him any better.

I had been in the counting-house for two years, each day feeling like a week for duration. But the question of rebellion had so far never occurred to me. I could no longer practise in the garret while my father was in the counting-house. But I could get away, on pretence of business to the s.h.i.+ps, and s.n.a.t.c.h an hour below with the fiddler. And in the evening sometimes, when my father was feasting with a City Company or engaged in other business out of the house, I could take boat across the river and run over to St. George's Fields, there to have half an hour of play with a musician, of whom you shall learn more, called Tom s.h.i.+rley.

After the manner of youths I never asked myself how long this would go on without discovery: or what would be the result when it was discovered. Yet I knew very well that no Quaker could be more decided as to the sinfulness of music than my father and my uncle. Had not the great and Reverend Samuel Halliday, D. D., preached before the Protector on the subject of the snares spread by the devil to catch souls by means of music?

Now, one afternoon in the month of June, when the counting-house is more than commonly terrible, a message came to me that my father wished to speak with me.

I found him in his own room, his brother Paul sitting with him. His face showed astonishment and anger; that of his brother presented some appearance of sorrow--real or not, I cannot say. My uncle Paul was, as often happens in a family, a reduced copy of his elder brother. He was not so tall: not so portly: not so red in the face: not so swollen in the neck: yet he was tall and portly and red and swollen. He was shaking his head as I entered saying, 'Dear! dear! dear! And in our family too--in our family!'

'Son William,' said my father, 'I have heard a serious thing.'

'What is that, Sir, if I may ask?'

'I learn from my brother, who had it from Matthew----'

'From Matthew,' my uncle interposed solemnly.

'That you lose no opportunity of getting away from your desk to go on board our s.h.i.+ps in the Pool, there to play the fiddle with the common sailors--to play the fiddle--the common fiddle--like a fellow with a bear--with the common sailors. I hear that our Captains and officers are all acquainted with this unworthy pastime of yours! I hear, further, that you have formed an acquaintance with a certain fellow named s.h.i.+rley, now a prisoner in the Rules of the King's Bench, one who makes a sinful living by playing wanton music for lewd and wicked persons at what are called Pleasure Gardens, whither resort such company as no G.o.dly youth should meet. And I hear that you spend such time as you can spare under the tuition of this person.'

He stopped. My uncle took up the word.

'All these things I am a.s.sured by my son Matthew to be the case. I have informed Matthew that in my opinion it was right and even necessary that they should be brought before the notice of my brother.'

'I wait thy reply, Will,' said my father.

'It is all quite true, Sir.'

'Quite true.' I felt a little sinking of the heart because of the disappointment and sadness in his voice. 'But,' he went on, 'what is the meaning of it? For my own part I see no good purpose to be gained by music. On the other hand my grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Halliday, hath clearly shown in his book of G.o.dly discourses, that music, especially music with dancing, is the surest bait by which the devil draws souls to destruction. People, I am aware, will have music. At our Company's feasts music attends: at the Lord Mayor's banquets there is music: at the Lord Mayor's Show there is music: at many churches there is an organ: but what hast thou to do with music, Will? It is thy part to become a merchant, bent on serious work: and outside the counting-house to become a magistrate. What hast thou to do with music?'

He spoke, being much moved, kindly--because--alas! he loved his son.

'Sir,' I said, 'it is all most true. There is nothing that I love so much as music.'

'Consider,' he went on. 'There is no place for music in the life before thee. All day long learning thy work in the counting-house: some time to succeed me in this room. How is it possible for a young man who stoops to make music on catgut with a bow to become a serious merchant, respected in the City?'

'Indeed, Sir, I do not know,'

'How will it be possible for you to advance the interests of the House--nay, to maintain the interests of the House, when it is known that you are a common sc.r.a.per in a crowd like a one-legged man with a Jack in the Green?'

Now I might even then have submitted and promised and given up my fiddle and so pleased my father and remained in his favour. But this was one of those moments which are turning-points in a man's life. Besides I was young; I was inexperienced. And an overwhelming disgust fell upon my soul as I thought of the counting-house and the ledgers and the long hours in the dingy place driving the quill all day long. So without understanding what the words meant, I broke out impatiently:

'Sir,' I said, 'with submission, I would ask your leave to give up my place in this office.'

'Give up? Give up?' he cried, growing purple in the face. 'Does the boy know what he means?'

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'GIVE UP!' HE CRIED, GROWING PURPLE IN THE FACE."]

'Give up?' cried my uncle. 'Is the boy mad? Give up his prospects in this House--this--the soundest House in the whole City? Nephew Will, wouldst starve?'

'I will make a living by music.'

'Make a living--a living--make a living--by music? What? To play the fiddle in a tavern? To play in the gallery while your father is feasting below?'

'Nay, sir; but there are other ways.'

'Hark ye, Will; let this stop. Back to thy desk lest something happen.'

My father spoke with sudden sternness.

'Nay, sir; but I am serious.'

'Ay--ay? Serious? Then I am serious, too. Understand, then, that I own no son who disgraces the City family to which he belongs by becoming a common musician. Choose. Take thy fiddle and give up me--this office--thine inheritance--thine inheritance, mind, or lay down the fiddle and go back to thy desk. There, sir, I am, I hope, serious enough.'

He was. My father was a masterful man at all times; he was perfectly serious. Now the sons of masterful men are themselves often masterful. I walked out of the counting-house without a word.

I am conscious that there is no excuse for a disobedient son. I ought to have accepted any orders that my father might choose to lay upon me. But to part with my fiddle, to give up music: to abandon that sweet refreshment of the soul: oh! it was too much.

Moreover, no one knew better than myself the inveterate hatred with which my father and the whole of my family regarded what they called the tinkling cymbal which they thought leads souls to destruction. Had I seen any gleam of hope that there would be a relenting, I would have waited. But there was none. Therefore I cast obedience to the winds, and left the room without a word.

Had I known what awaited me: the misfortunes which were to drag me down almost unto a shameful death, in consequence of this act of disobedience, I might have given way.

But perhaps not: for in all my troubles there were two things which cheered and sustained me, I enjoyed at all times, so you shall learn, the support of love and the refreshment of music.

Had my father known of these misfortunes would he have given way? I doubt it. Misfortune does not destroy the soul, but music does. So he would say and so think, and conduct his relations with his own accordingly.