Flageolet

‘Monday 24 June 1667

Up, and to the office, where much business upon me by the coming of people of all sorts about the dispatch of one business or other of the fire-ships, or other ships to be set out now. This morning Greeting come, and I with him at my flageolet…’

Thomas Greeting gained employment in Charles II’s court in 1662.  Greeting helped introduce the Flageolet to English music, and published “The Pleasant Companion, or new Lessons on the Flagelet”, around 1668.  Greeting taught Samuel Pepys how to play (Pepys Diary above).  This woodwind instrument made its way in to Walter Scott’s “Guy Mannering”, as well.

'Two or three times during the last fortnight I heard, at a late hour in

the night or very early in the morning, a flageolet play the little Hindu

tune to which your daughter is so partial. I thought for some time that

some tuneful domestic, whose taste for music was laid under constraint

during the day, chose that silent hour to imitate the strains which he

had caught up by the ear during his attendance in the drawing-room. But

last night I sat late in my study, which is immediately under Miss

Mannering's apartment, and to my surprise I not only heard the flageolet

distinctly, but satisfied myself that it came from the lake under the

window. Curious to know who serenaded us at that unusual hour, I stole

softly to the window of my apartment. But there were other watchers than

me. You may remember, Miss Mannering preferred that apartment on account

of a balcony which opened from her window upon the lake. Well, sir, I

heard the sash of her window thrown up, the shutters opened, and her own

voice in conversation with some person who answered from below. This is

not "Much ado about nothing"; I could not be mistaken in her voice, and

such tones, so soft, so insinuating; and, to say the truth, the accents

from below were in passion's tenderest cadence too,--but of the sense I

can say nothing. I raised the sash of my own window that I might hear

something more than the mere murmur of this Spanish rendezvous; but,

though I used every precaution, the noise alarmed the speakers; down slid

the young lady's casement, and the shutters were barred in an instant.

The dash of a pair of oars in the water announced the retreat of the male

person of the dialogue. Indeed, I saw his boat, which he rowed with great

swiftness and dexterity, fly across the lake like a twelve-oared barge.

Next morning I examined some of my domestics, as if by accident, and I

found the gamekeeper, when making his rounds, had twice seen that boat

beneath the house, with a single person, and had heard the flageolet. I

did not care to press any farther questions, for fear of implicating

Julia in the opinions of those of whom they might be asked. Next morning,

at breakfast, I dropped a casual hint about the serenade of the evening

before, and I promise you Miss Mannering looked red and pale alternately.

I immediately gave the circumstance such a turn as might lead her to

suppose that my observation was merely casual. I have since caused a

watch-light to be burnt in my library, and have left the shutters open,

to deter the approach of our nocturnal guest; and I have stated the

severity of approaching winter, and the rawness of the fogs, as an

objection to solitary walks. Miss Mannering acquiesced with a passiveness

which is no part of her character, and which, to tell you the plain

truth, is a feature about the business which I like least of all. Julia

has too much of her own dear papa's disposition to be curbed in any of

her humours, were there not some little lurking consciousness that it may

be as prudent to avoid debate…’