‘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…’
