My earliest recollection as a child shows me Captain Crowle, full-wigged, with a white silk cravat round his neck, the lace ends hanging down before, a crimson silk sash to his sword, long lace ruffles, his brown coat with silver buttons, his worsted hose, and his shoes with silver clocks. In my memory he is always carrying his hat under his arm; a stout stick always dangled from his wrist, in readiness; and he always presents the same honest face, weather-beaten, ruddy, lined, with his keen eyes under thick eyebrows and his nose long and broad and somewhat arched—such a nose as lends authority to a man. In other words, I never saw any change in the captain, though, when I first remember him he must have been fifty-five, and when he ceased to be seen in his old haunts he was close upon eighty.

I have seen, however, and I remember, many changes in the captain's ward. She is a little thing of two or three at first; then she is a merry child of six; next she is a schoolgirl of ten or eleven; she grows into a maiden of sixteen, neither girl nor woman; she becomes a woman of eighteen. I remember her in every stage. Strange to say I do not remember her between those stages.

Molly had the misfortune to lose her father in infancy. He was carried off, I believe, by smallpox. He was a ship owner, and general merchant of the town, and was generally reputed to be a man of considerable means. At his death he bequeathed the care of his widow and his child to his old servant, Captain John Crowle, who had been in the service of the house since he was apprenticed as a boy. He directed, further, that Captain Crowle should conduct the business for the child, who by his will was to inherit the whole of his fortune whatever that might prove to be, on coming of age, after subtracting certain settlements for his widow.

It was most fortunate for the child that her guardian was the most honest person in the world. He was a bachelor; he was bound by ties of gratitude to the house which he had served; he had nothing to do and nothing to think about except the welfare of the child.

I would have no secrets with my reader. Let it be known, therefore, that on looking into the position of affairs, the executor found that there was a much greater fortune for his ward than any one, even the widow, ever guessed. There were houses in the town; there were farms in Marshland; there were monies placed out on mortgage; there were three or four tall ships, chiefly in the Lisbon trade; and there were boxes full of jewels, gold chains, and trinkets, the accumulation of three or four generations of substantial trade. He kept this knowledge to himself: then, as the expenses of the household were small and there was always a large balance after the year in favour of the house, he went on adding ship to ship, house to house, and farm to farm, besides putting out monies on the security of mortgage, so that the child, no one suspecting, grew richer and richer, until by the time she was eighteen, if the captain only knew it, she became the richest heiress not only in the town of Lynn, but also in the whole county of Norfolk and even, I verily believe, in the whole country.

I think that the captain must have been what is called a good man of business by nature. A simple sailor, one taught to navigate; to take observations; to keep a log and to understand a chart, is not supposed to be thereby trained for trade. But it must have been a far-seeing man who boldly launched out into new branches, and sent whalers to the Arctic seas; ships to trade in the Baltic; and ships into the Mediterranean, as well as ships in the old trade for which Lynn was always famous, that with Lisbon for wine. He it was who enlarged the quay and rebuilt the Common Stath Yard: his countinghouse—it was called his and he was supposed to be at least a partner—was filled with clerks, and it was counted good fortune by the young men of the place to enter his service whether as prentices on board his ships, or as bookkeepers in his countinghouse, or as supercargoes or pursers in his fleet. For my own part it was always understood between us that I too was to enter his service, but as a sailor, not as a clerk. This I told him as a little boy, with the impudence of childhood: he laughed; but he remembered and reminded me from time to time. "Jack is to be a sailor—Jack will have none of your quill driving—Jack means to walk his own quarter-deck. I shall live to give Jack his sword and his telescope" … and so on, lest perchance I should forget and fall off and even accept the vicar's offer to get me a scholarship at some college of Cambridge, so that I might take a degree, and become my father's usher and presently succeed him as master of the Grammar school. "Learning," said the captain, "is a fine thing, but the command of a ship is a finer. Likewise it is doubtless a great honour to be a master of arts, such as your father, but, my lad, a rope's end is, to my mind, a better weapon than a birch." And so on. For while he knew how to respect the learning of a scholar, as he respected the piety of the vicar, he considered the calling of the sailor more delightful than that of the schoolmaster, even though not so highly esteemed by the world.

There were plenty of children in the town of Lynn to play with: but it came about in some way or other, perhaps because I was always a favourite with the captain, and was encouraged to go often to the house, that Molly became my special playfellow. She was two years younger than myself, but being forward in growth and strength the difference was not a hindrance, while there was no game or amusement pleasing to me which did not please her. For instance, every boy of Lynn, as soon as he can handle a scull, can manage a dingy; and as soon as he can haul a rope, can sail a boat. For my own part I can never remember the time when I was not in my spare time out on the river. I would sail up the river, along the low banks of the sluggish stream up and down which go the barges which carry the cargoes of our ships to the inland towns and return for more. There are also tilt boats coming down the river which are like the waggons on the road, full of passengers, sailors, servants, soldiers, craftsmen, apprentices and the like. Or I would row down the river with the current and the tide as far as the mouth where the river flows into the Wash. Then I would sail up again watching the ships tacking across the stream in their slow upward progress to the port. Or I would go fishing and bring home a basket full of fresh fish for the house: or I would paddle about in a dingy among the ships, watching them take in and discharge cargo: or receive from the barges alongside the casks of pork and beef; of rum and beer and water, for the next voyage: happy indeed, if I could get permission to tie up the painter to the rope ladder hanging over the side and so climb up and ramble over every part of the ship. And I knew every ship that belonged to the port: every Dutchman which put in with cheese and tallow, hardware and soft goods; every Norwegian that brought deal: I knew them all and when they were due and their tonnage and the name of the captain.

More than this, Molly knew as much as I did. She was as handy with her sculls; she knew every puff of wind and where to expect it at the bend of the river; she was as handy with the sails. While her mother made her a notable housewife and taught her to make bread, cakes, puddings and pies; to keep the still-room; to sew and make and mend; to brew the ale, both the strong and the small; and the punch for the captain's friends at Christmas and other festivals—while, I say, this part of Molly's education was not neglected, it was I who made her a sailor, so that there was nowhere in the place any one, man or boy or girl, who was handier with a boat or more certain with a sail than Molly. And I know not which of these two accomplishments pleased her guardian the more. That she should become a good housewife was necessary: that she should be a handy sailor was an accomplishment which, because it was rare in a girl, and belonged to the work of the other sex, seemed to him a proper and laudable object of pride.

The captain, as you have already learned, nourished a secret ambition. When I was still little more than a boy, he entrusted his secret to me. Molly's mother, the good homely body who was so notable a housekeeper, and knew nothing, as she desired to know nothing concerning the manners and customs of gentlefolk, was not consulted. Nor did the good woman even know how great an heiress her daughter had become. Now, the captain's ambition was to make his ward, by means of her fortune, a great lady. He knew little—poor man!—of what was meant by a great lady, but he wanted the heiress of such great wealth to marry some man who would lift her out of the rank and condition to which she was born. It was a fatal ambition, as you shall learn. Now, being wise after the event and quite able to lock the door after the horse has been stolen I can understand that with such an ambition the captain's only plan was to have taken the girl away; perhaps to Norwich, perhaps to London itself; to have placed her under the care of some respectable gentlewoman; to have had her taught all the fashionable fal-lals, with the graces and the sprawls and the antics of the fashionable world; to let it be buzzed abroad that she was an heiress, and then, after taking care to protect her against adventurers, to find a man after his own mind, of station high enough to make the girl's fortune equal to his own; not to overshadow it: and not to dazzle him with possibilities of spending. However, it is easy to understand what might have been done.

What was done, you understand. At nineteen, Molly was a fine tall girl, as strong as any man, her arms stout and muscular like mine; her face rosy and ruddy with the bloom of health; her eyes blue and neither too large nor too small but fearless; her head and face large; her hair fair and blowing about her head with loose curls; her figure full; her neck as white as snow; her hands large rather than small, by reason of the rowing and the handling of the ropes, and by no means white; her features were regular and straight; her mouth not too small but to my eyes the most beautiful mouth in the world, the lips full, and always ready for a smile, the teeth white and regular. In a word, to look at as fine a woman, not of the delicate and dainty kind, but strong, tall, and full of figure, as one may wish for. As to her disposition she was the most tender, affectionate, sweet soul that could be imagined; she was always thinking of something to please those who loved her; she spared her mother and worked for her guardian; she was always working at something; she was always happy; she was always singing. And never, until the captain told her, did she have the least suspicion that she was richer than all her friends and neighbours—nay—than the whole town of Lynn with its merchants and shippers and traders, all together.

You think that I speak as a lover. It is true that I have always loved Molly: there has never been any other woman in the world for whom I have ever felt the least inclination or affection. She possessed my whole soul as a child; she has it still—my soul—my heart—my whole desire—my all. I will say no more in her praise, lest I be thought to exaggerate.

Let me return for a moment to our childhood. We ran about together: we first played in the garden: we then played in the fields below the wall: we climbed over what is left of the wall: from the top of the Grey Friars' Tower; from the chapel on the Lady's Mount; we would look out upon the broad expanse of meadows which were once covered over at every high tide: there were stories which were told by old people of broken dams and of floods and inundations: children's imagination is so strong that they can picture anything. I would pretend that the flood was out again; that my companion was carried away in a hencoop and that I was swimming to her assistance. Oh! we had plays and pretences enough. If we went up the river there was beyond—what we could never reach—a castle with a giant who carried off girls and devoured them; he carried off my companion. Heavens! How I rushed to the rescue and with nothing but the boathook encountered and slaughtered him. Or if we went down the river as far as the mouth where it falls into the Ouse, we would remember the pirates and how they seized on girls and took them off to their caves to work for them. How many pirates did I slay in defence and rescue of one girl whom they dared to carry off!

Or we rambled about the town, lingering on the quays, watching the ships and the sailors and the workmen, and sometimes in summer evenings when from some tavern with its red curtain across the window came the scraping of a fiddle, and the voices of those who sang, and the stamping of those who danced, we would look in at the open door and watch the sailors within who looked so happy. Nobody can ever be so happy as sailors ashore appear to be: it is only the joy of a moment, but when one remembers it, one imagines that it was the joy of a life-time. You think that it was a bad thing for children to look on at sailors and to listen to their conversation if one may use the word of such talk as goes on among the class. You are wrong. These things do not hurt children, because they do not understand. Half the dangers in the world, I take it, come from knowledge: only the other half from ignorance. Everybody knows the ways and the life of Jack ashore. Children, however, see only the outside of things. The fiddler in the corner puts his elbow into the tune; the men get up and dance the hornpipe; the girls dance to the men, setting and jetting and turning round and round and all with so much mirth and good nature and so much kindness and so much singing and laughing, that there can be no more delightful entertainment for children than to look on at a sailors' merrymaking behind the red curtain of the tavern window.

I recall one day. It was in the month of December, in the afternoon and close upon sunset. The little maid was about eight and I was ten. We were together as usual; we had been on the river, but it was cold and so we came ashore and were walking hand in hand along the street they call Pudding Lane which leads from the Common Stath Yard to the market-place. In this lane there stands a sailors' tippling house, which is, I dare say, in all respects, such a house as sailors desire, provided and furnished according to their wants and wishes. As we passed, the place being already lit up with two or three candles in sconces, the door being wide open, and the mingled noise of fiddle, voices, and feet announcing the assemblage of company, Molly pulled me by the hand and stopped to look in. The scene was what I have already indicated. The revelry of the evening had set in: everybody was drinking: one was dancing: the fiddler was playing lustily.

We should have looked on for a minute and left them. But one of the sailors recognised Molly. Springing to his feet, he made a respectful leg and saluted the child. "Mates," he cried, "'tis our owner! The little lady owns the barky. What shall we do for her?"

Then they all sprang to their feet with a huzza for the owner, and another for the ship—and, if you will believe it, their rough fo'c'sle hands in half a minute had the child on the table in a chair like a queen. She sat with great dignity, understanding in some way that these men were in her own service, and that they designed no harm or affright to her but only to do her honour. Therefore she was not in any fear and smiled graciously; for my own part I followed and stood at the table thinking that perhaps these fellows were proposing some piratical abduction and resolving miracles of valour, if necessary.

Then they made offerings. One man pulled a red silk handkerchief from his neck and laid it in her lap; and another lugged a box of sweetmeats from his pocket: it came from Lisbon but was made, I believe, in Morocco by the Moors. A third had a gold ring on his finger—everybody knows the extravagancies of sailors—which he drew off and placed in her hand. Another offered a glass of punch. The little maid did what she had so often seen the captain do. She looked round and said, "Your good health, all the company," and put her lips to the glass which she then returned. And another offered to dance and the fiddler drew his bow across the catgut—it is a sound which inclines the heart to beat and the feet to move whenever a sailor hears it.

"I have often seen you dance," said Molly; "let the fiddler play and you shall see me dance."

I never thought she would have had so much spirit. For, you see, I had taught her to dance the hornpipe: every boy in a seaport town can dance the hornpipe: we used to make music out of a piece of thin paper laid over a tortoise-shell comb—it must be a comb of wide teeth and none of them must be broken—and with this instead of a fiddle we would dance in the garden or in the parlour. But to stand up before a whole company of sailors—who would have thought it? However, she jumped up and on the table performed her dance with great seriousness and so gracefully that they were all enchanted: they stood around, their mouths open, a broad grin on every face: the women, neglected, huddled together in a corner and were quite silent.

When she had finished, she gathered up her gifts—the silk handkerchief—it came from Calicut, the sweetmeats from Morocco, the gold ring from I know not where. "Put me down, if you please," she said. So one of them gently lifted her to the ground. "I thank you all," she curtseyed very prettily. "I wish you good-night, and when you set sail again, a good voyage."

So she took my hand and we ran away.

At the age of thirteen I went to sea. Then for ten years I sailed out and home again; sometimes to the Baltic; sometimes to Bordeaux; sometimes to Lisbon. After every voyage I found my former companion grown, yet always more lovely and more charming: the time came when we no longer kissed at parting; when we were no longer brother and sister; when, alas! we could not be lovers, because between us lay that great fortune of hers, which it would be improper to bestow upon the mate of a merchantman.

Said my father to me once by way of warning, "Jack, build not hopes that will be disappointed. This maiden is not for thee, but for thy betters. If she were poor—but she is rich—too rich, I fear me, for her happiness. Let us still say in the words of Agur, 'Give me neither poverty nor riches.' Thou art as yet young for thoughts of love. When the time comes, my son, cast your eyes among humbler maidens and find virtues and charms in one of them. But think no more—I say it for thy peace—think no more of Molly. Her great riches are like a high wall built round her to keep thee off, Jack, and others like unto thee."

They were wise words, but a young man's thoughts are wilful. There was no other maiden in whom I saw either virtues or charms because Molly among them all was like the silver moon among the glittering stars.

You have heard of the great and unexpected discovery, how the town found itself the possessor of a spa—and such a spa!—compared with which the waters of Tunbridge were feeble and those of Epsom not worth considering. That was in the year 1750, when Molly was already nineteen years of age and no longer a little maid, but a woman grown, as yet without wooers, because no one so far had been found fit, in the captain's eyes, for the hand and the purse of his lovely ward.