CHAPTER II
A CITY OF REFUGE
My last recollection of the counting-house is that of Matthew lying in aheap and shaking his fist, at me, while, behind, my uncle's face looksout amazed upon the spectacle from one door, and the clerks in a crowdcontemplate the discomfiture of Mr. Matthew from another door. Then Istrode off, I say, like a gamecock after a victory, head erect, cheekflushed, 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. Ithanselled the new life. After it, there was no return possible.
And so home--though the house in College Street could no longer becalled 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 thecupboard I found a black box in which I placed everything I could callmy own: my music; my linen and my clothes. On the wall hung theminiature of my mother. Happily she had not lived to see the banishmentof her son: this I put in my pocket. The fiddle I laid in its case. Thenwith my cudgel under my arm and carrying the fiddle in one hand and thebox on my shoulder I descended the stairs--now, I must confess, with asinking heart--and found myself in the street.
I had in my purse five guineas--the son of a most solid and substantialmerchant, and I had no more than five guineas in the world. What could Ido to earn a living? Since I had been for two years in my father'scounting house I might be supposed to know something of affairs. Alas! Iknew nothing. One art or accomplishment I possessed: and one alone. Icould play the fiddle. Now that I had to depend upon my playing for alivelihood, I began to ask whether I could play well enough. At allevents, I could play vigorously. But the die was cast. I had made mychoice, and must make the best of it. Besides, had I not drubbed mycousin Matthew and that, as they say, with authority?
You have heard how my father accused me of intimacy with a person namedShirley, a resident in the Rules of the King's Bench. That charge Icould not deny. Indeed, the person named Shirley, by all his friendscalled Tom, had been of late my master. Every spare hour that I had wasspent with him, practising with him and learning from him. He taught afiner style than I could learn from the sailors. When I went into thecounting-house I had no longer any spare hours, except in the evening,and then my master was engaged earning his bread in an orchestra. StillI could manage to visit him sometimes on Sunday evenings when my fatherwas generally occupied with friends who loved likewise to limit and makeas narrow as they could the mercies of the Almighty.
At this moment I could think of no one except Tom Shirley who could helpme or advise me.
I therefore lugged my box and my violin to the Three Cranes, and tookboat across to Moldstrand Stairs, from which it is an easy half mile bypleasant 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 ofthree or four cottages standing in a row, every cottage consisting offour or five rooms. They are pleasing retreats, each having a smallfront garden where lilacs, laburnums, hollyhock, sunflowers, tulips, andother flowers and bushes grow. In front of the garden flows languidlyone of the many little streams which cross the fields and meadows ofSouthwark: a rustic bridge with a single hand-rail crosses the stream.
The region of St. George's Fields, as is very well known, has areputation which, in fact, is well deserved. The fact that it is coveredwith shallow ponds, some of which are little better than mere laystalls,causes it to be frequented on Sundays and on summer evenings by the rudeand barbarous people who come here to hunt ducks with dogs--a horridsport: some of them even throw cats into the water and set their dogs atthem. The same people come here for prize fights, but they say that thecombatants have an understanding beforehand how long the fight is tolast: some come for quarter-staff practice: some come for hockey or forfootball. Outside the Fields there are many taverns and places ofentertainment: on the Fields there is at least one, the notorious Dogand Duck. Every evening except in winter these places are full of peoplewho come to dance and drink and sing. Every kind of wickedness is openlypractised here: if a man would gamble, here are the companions for himand here are rooms where he can play: if he would meet women as deboshedas himself here they may be found.
It is unfortunate for Southwark and its environs that everything seemsto have conspired to give it a bad name. First of all, it was formerlyoutside the jurisdiction of the City, so that all the villains andcriminals 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 atSt. Mary Overies, grew to accommodate as great a number as that inWestminster where they only lately pulled down the gray old Tower whichlooked like a donjon keep rather than the walls enclosing two chapels. Iknow not whether there was such a tower at Montagu Close, but within myrecollection no officer of the law dared to arrest any sanctuary man inMint Street--their latest refuge: nor did any person with property tolose 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 withoutwatch, chain, buckles, shoes, lace cravat, ruffles. Fortunate if he wasallowed to escape with no more injury. The presence of these villainswas 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'sBench Prison: the Marshal-sea: the Borough Compter: the Clink: the WhiteLyon. So many prisons in a place so thinly populated produced asaddening effect. And, besides, there are those who live in the Rules,which are themselves a kind of prison but without walls. In anotherpart, 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 favouritesports of Southwark.
These considerations are quite sufficient to account for the evilreputation which clings to the Borough. They do not, however, prevent itfrom being a place of great resort for those who come up from Kent andSurrey on business, and they do not for obvious reasons prevent theplace from being inhabited by the prisoners of the Rules.
When I arrived, Tom Shirley was playing on the harpsichord, his head ina white nightcap, his wig hanging on a nail. As he played, not lookingat notes or keys, his face was turned upwards and his eyes were rapt. Asone watched him his face changed in expression with the various emotionsof the music: no man, certainly, was more moved by music than TomShirley. No man, also, could more certainly bring out the very soul ofthe music, the inner thought of the composer. He played as if he lovedplaying, which indeed he did whether it was a country dance, or a minuetor an oratorio or a Roman Catholic Mass. It was a fine face, delicate inoutline; full of expression: the face of a musician: it lacked thefirmness which belongs to one who fights: he was no gladiator in thearena: 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 momentshe heard nothing. There was another door opposite leading to thekitchen, 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 sprangto 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 sakeof 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 theorchestra 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 ofhis own cottage and his manner of life as if both were stately andsumptuous. 'Very few,' he added proudly, 'can live as we live.' Helooked proudly round. The room was about ten feet square: low, painteddrab, without ornament, without curtains: there were a few shelves: acupboard: a small table: two brass candlesticks, a brass pair ofsnuffers: four rush-bottomed chairs, and nothing more.
Tom was dressed in an old brown coat with patches on the elbows, thewrists frayed and the buttons gone. To be sure he had a finer coat forthe orchestra. His stockings were of worsted, darned in many places: awoollen wrapper was round his neck. Everything proclaimed poverty: ofcourse people who are not poor do not live in the Rules. 'Few,' herepeated, 'are privileged to live as I live.' I have never known whetherthis was a craze or his humour to pretend that he fared sumptuously: waslodged like a prince: and received the wages of an ambassador. Perhapsit was mere habit; a way of presenting his own life to himself byexaggeration 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 atonce.'
'Ay, there we talk sense. But first, why hath Sir Peter behaved withthis (apparent) harshness? I would not judge him hastily. Therefore Isay, apparent.'
'Because he found out at last--my cousin Matthew told him--that I camehere to play the fiddle. So he gave me the choice--either to give up thecounting-house or to give up the music. And I gave up thecounting-house, Tom. I don't care what happens so that I get out of thecounting-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 thatmoment, his sister Alice came back from making some purchases in theBorough High Street. 'Alice my dear,' he said, 'Will has been turned outof house and home by his father--sent out into the streets without apenny.'
Alice burst into tears.
When I think of Alice at that moment, my heart swells, my eyes growhumid. 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 Aliceburst into tears it was the child who wept: she had always loved me witha childish unconsciousness: she was only beginning to understand that Iwas not her brother.
You know how sweet a flower will sometimes spring up in the mostunlovely spot. Well: in this place, close to the Dog and Duck, withprodigals and rakes and painted Jezebels always before her eyes, thischild grew up sweet and tender and white as the snow. I have never knownany girl upon whom the continual sight--not to be concealed--of grossvice produced so little effect: it was as if the eyes of her soulinvoluntarily closed to the meaning of such things. Such sweetness, suchpurity, was stamped upon her face then as afterwards. Never, surely, wasthere a face that showed so plain and clear to read that the thoughtsbehind 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 joyfulcompassion and, so to speak, happy shame, to think that those tears werefor 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. 'Heshall do much better--far better--than if he had stayed in thecounting-house. He shall not be weighed down with a load of riches: heshall have to work in order to live--believe me, Will, Art must beforced by necessity: where there is no necessity there is no Art: whenriches creep in, Art becomes a toy. Because he must work, therefore hewill be stimulated to do great things. He shall never set his mind upongrowing rich: he shall remain poor.'
'Not too poor,' said his wife gently. Indeed her poor shabby dressshowed what she meant.
'Peace, woman. He shall be poor, I say. Happy lad! He shall be poor. Heshall never have money in a stocking, and he shall never want any. Heshall live like the sparrows, from day to day, fed by the bounty of theLord.'
'Who loveth the Dog and Duck,' said his wife.
The husband frowned. 'To sum up, Will, thy lot shall be the happiestthat the world can give. What?' He lifted his hand and his eyes grewbrighter. 'For the musician the curse of labour is remitted: for himthere is no longing after riches: for him there is no flattery of greatmen: for him there is no meanness; for him there are no base arts: forhim there is no wriggling: for him there are no back stairs: for himthere is no patron.--In a word, Will, the musician is the only free manin 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.' Ishowed 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 thisevening we will have a bowl of punch. Will, we shall fare like Kings andlike the Great ones of the Earth.'