The Return of Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector

by Lillian de la Torre

  “Make haste, Frank! You must take coach and hurry to Johnson’s. Court with a billet.”

  At the stair foot, MacNeill stood gazing upward and scratching his ear. I tapped his shoulder and mumbled something about his papers. In his musty lair next the chart room, he placed them before me. After solemn scrutiny, I pronounced them in order, as indeed they were for aught I knew. Gratified, the supercargo pressed upon me some specimens of the ship’s lading: sundry gaudy scraps of coarse cloth, with a handful of brummagem glass beads. I uttered profuse thanks, and took elaborate leave of him.

  When I issued at last into the blessed clean air of the deck, Dr. Johnson’s servitor had a written billet clutched in his greasy black hand, and was crossing the plank to the wharf, the while his master called after him:

  “And hark’ee, Frank, bid the coachman make haste in returning.”

  An emphatick nod shook the turban fringes, and Ben Handey’s coach jiggled them from our sight.

  “All done?” rasped Captain Westover behind me.

  “The report must be writ on the spot,” cut in Dr. Johnson. “Be about it, Mister Wharfinger. You’ve time till Frank returns with an answer.”

  “An answer to what?” growled the Captain suspiciously.

  “To my billet, sir,” replied my friend blandly. “Now as to the blacks aboard ship, sir, pray tell, how do you manage—?”

  He drew the scowling fellow into private discourse by the rail. My ears cauught scraps of the slaver’s profane complaints about the perversity of the blackamoors and the difficulties of the slave trade. Warned by a glance from Dr. Johnson, I perched on a coil of rope, drew forth my tablets, and fell to scribbling. Having nothing official to record, I began to narrate the affecting story of Quashie. How would it end?

  I did not see Frank come aboard, but when our hackney coach was once more perceived upon the wharf, Dr. Johnson pronounced:

  “Frank must be returned. Frank!” he bellowed. “Where’s my lacquey? He needs a beating. Frank!”

  At this moment, who should come striding up the gang-plank but—Captain Standart! At sight of us he started.

  “What, old square-toes, what do you here? After Quashie, no doubt? Well, I have him safe, sir. He’ll soon learn his lesson,”

  “No doubt, sir,” said Dr. Johnson coldly. “I’ll bid you good day, sir. Frank!”

  Up from below came Frank, his brocades gleaming, his wooley head bare.

  “Quashie!” cried Captain Standart, collaring him. “’Tis my black (shaking him)! How have you got loose? And in these cloathes!”

  “No, sir,” said Frank smoothly, in his best schooled English, “I am not your black: I am Dr. Johnson’s black, and I desire you’ll not detain me.”

  “There’s something deep here,” muttered Stan-dart, loosing him reluctantly, “and I’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “Do,” said Johnson, “go as deep in iniquity as you please, but stand out of my way (gripping his oaken stick). You, Frank, you scoundrel, where’s your headgear?”

  “Alack, sir, blown overboard.”

  Dr. Johnson caught him a smart box o’ the ear.

  “Be off, you ideot!”

  To my amazement, the lofty philosopher, brandishing his stick, cudgelled Frank before him down the plank onto the wharf, while the black protected his pate with his arms. Captain Westover by the rail roared with laughter as at a comedy, and Captain Standart snorted and turned on his heel.

  “Make haste, Ben,” said Dr. Johnson, “for Captain Standart has gone below; he’ll explode any minute.”

  As the Jehu encouraged his tired nag to exertion, sure enough there was a roar from the ship, and as we clattered away, Captain Standart started to the rail, his saturnine visage purple, and shook his fist after us.

  BEN HANDEY: What ails the fellow?

  JOHNSON (smiling): He has discovered the disappearance of Quashie.

  BOSWELL: But what of the chain and manacles?

  JOHNSON: ’Twas Frank that managed it. The hog’s lard did it, boy?

  FRANK: Yes, sir. The bracelets were meant for sailors’ fists, not hands like ours (holding up a slim paw), and being well greased with hog’s lard, such a hand could slip through. To my relief; for hammer and chisel, tho’ I carried them about me, could not but prove noisier even than Mr. Boswell stirring up the ironmongery. Well, we got the fetters off, and caftan and turban on, while you, sirs, raised a dust at the ladder foot; and so Quashie passed for me long enough to slip away.

  BOSWELL: What would you have done, Dr. Johnson, had the supercargo, becoming suspicious, descended the ladder again to oversee our proceedings?

  JOHNSON: First tripping up his heels with my staff, sir, I should have then encumbered him with help, long enough for Quashie in Frank’s caftan to make the best of his way up the ladder.

  BOSWELL: Caftan? What then does Frank wear?

  FRANK: A man may wear two caftans, one above the other.

  BOSWELL: (enlightened): But not two turbans.

  “So the turban must seem lost,” smiled Dr. Johnson. “Sorry I am, Frank, that I had to beat you for it.”

  “More convincingly,” rejoined Frank, “than painfully.”

  “It gave us a spectacular scene to exit by,” observed Dr. Johnson, “and diverted the attention of the slavers momentarily from Quashie, long enough for us to elude them. We should not care to be in their hands now.”

  “So I was thinking, waiting in the hold for Quashie to get well away,” said Frank. “I knew not but I should see Jamaica and slavery again.”

  “Well, boy, you have done nobly.”

  “Why Frank?” I burst out, aggrieved. “Why not me? Why was I excluded from the scheam?”

  “Your face, my dear Bozzie,” replied my friend, “is a window to your mind. Had you known ’twas Quashie between the turban fringes, your demeanor would have told the world of it.”

  “No, sir, you wrong me,” said I quietly. “Could I fail to know one from ’tother, after weeks of seeing them together? Yet when you said ‘Frank,’ was I to cry ‘Quashie’? To what end, think you did I clatter and clash the ironmongery so long and loud? To what end did I hold the supercargo in discourse while you sent off the black post-haste? No, sir, I have played my part, even uninstructed.”

  “Well done, Bozzy!” cried Dr. Johnson. “And prodigious well done, Frank! Between you, you have saved Quashie from slavery and oppression!”

  Yet tho’ Quashie had been rescued from the vengeful Captain, in the Court of King’s Bench before Lord Mansfield, Quashie’s freedom, with Somerset’s, still hung in the balance. I left England in late May. Not until June did I have a jubilant communication from Dr. Sam Johnson:

  “You will rejoice to know, sir, that Somerset, and with him Quashie and all the rest, is finally free, by the noble efforts of Mr. Granville Sharp, and the judicial dictum of Lord Mansfield, who said:

  “The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it!”

  [Affairs like this one happened more than once in 18th Century London, and more than once the heroic abolitionist Granville Sharp (not, in reality, Dr. Sam: Johnson, strongly anti-slavery though he was) saved the abused Negro from a Jamaica-bound vessel, as we read in the Memoirs (Prince Hoare, Memoirs of Granville Sharp, Esq., London: Henry Colburn, 1828, 2 vols.). Lord Mansfield’s judgment in the Somerset case, which at last put a stop to such disgraceful episodes, is history. For a similar decision in the Scottish court, some time later, both Boswell and Johnson labored mightily.]

  THE LOST HEIR

  “I implore you, Dr. Johnson, help a grieving mother to find her lost son!”

  Thus impulsively spoke Paulette, Lady Claybourne, as she crossed the threshold at Johnson’s Court. We saw a delicate small personage, past youth indeed, but slim and erect in the most elegant of costly widow’s weeds. Her face was a clear oval, cream tinged with pink, and her large dark eyes looked upon us imploringly under smooth translucent lids. In Dr. Johnson’s
plain old-fashioned sitting room, she looked like a white butterfly momentarily hovering over the gnarled bole of an oak tree.

  Dr. Sam: Johnson, detector of crime and chicane, and friend to the distrest, bowed over the small white hand. Then in his sixty-third year, tall and burly, aukward and uncouth, he yet valued himself upon his complaisance to the ladies. His large but shapely fingers engulfed the dainty digits of our guest as he led her to an armed chair, the while replying:

  “’Twere duty, no less. But first, ma’am (seating her), you must tell me how you came to lose the child. Pray attend, Mr. Boswell, I shall value your opinion. Ma’am, I present Mr. Boswell, advocate, of Edinburgh in Scotland, my young friend and favourite companion.”

  Smiling with pleasure to hear myself thus described, I bowed low. The lady inclined slightly, and began her story:

  “My son, Sir Richard Claybourne, is no child. He is in his twenty-seventh year, if—if he is in life. His father, Sir Hubert Claybourne, of Claybourne Hall in Kent, left me inconsolable ten years ago, and our only son, Richard, then sixteen, acceded to the title and estate.

  “Well, sir, ’tis a common story. Tho’ we had been close before, once he came into his estate, I could not controul him. Claybourne Hall saw him but seldom, for he preferred raking in London, running from the gaming tables to—to places more infamous yet.

  “Then, as he approached his majority,” the soft voice went on, “Richard fell deeply in love, and proposed to marry. ’Twas against my wishes, for tho’ the young lady’s fortune was ample, she was brought up in a household where I, alas, have no friends. But being neighbours, Cynthia Wentworth drew Richard home to Kent, and at Claybourne, on a day in spring, they were wedded and bedded.

  “Alas the day! That very night, Richard burst into my chamber, where I lay alone waking and fretting. He was dishevelled and wild, and, Damn the bitch, says he (pardon me, gentlemen), she has broken my heart, I shall leave England this night, I’ll go for a soldier, and never return while she lives. Nothing I said could disswade him. Take care of Claybourne estate, cried he to me, and was gone.”

  The low voice faltered, and went on:

  “With the help of Mr. Matthew Rollis, my trusted solicitor, I kept up the estate. Cynthia Wentworth, mute and grim, went back to her foster folk at Rendle. No word came from Richard; but enquiring of returning soldiers, once or twice I heard a rumor of him in the New World, at New-York, at Jamaica. Since then, nothing. Six years have now passed. I can bear it no longer. I must find my boy.”

  Dr. Johnson looked grave.

  “’Tis long for a voluntary absence. Who is the next heir? Who had an interest to prevent Sir Richard’s return?”

  “Good lack, Dr. Johnson, you do not think—?”

  “I do not think. I ask meerly.”

  “You alarm me, sir. The next heir is Jeremy Claybourne, a lad now rising twenty. He springs from the Claybournes of Rendle, a family I have long lived at enmity with. His father, my husband’s late brother Hector—well, I say nothing of him; he was kind to me while he lived. But his wife was a venomous vixen, and never spared to vilify me. In that house Cynthia was brought up and her mind poisoned against me. On them I blame the whole affair.

  “Indeed it is pressure from that quarter that drives me to action. The lawyers will have Richard declared dead, and his cousin Jeremy put in possession. On that day they will turn me out into the world without a friend. He must come home and protect me.”

  “Then we must find him. You say your son departed on his wedding night. How did he depart?”

  “I know not how, sir, but Claybourne estate is on the coast; I have thought he went by sea, perhaps in some smuggler’s vessel.”

  “A course full of peril,” commented my friend, who considered that being in a ship was like being in gaol, with the likelihood of being drowned. “Alas, madam, what assures you that he is still in life?”

  “A mother’s heart! I know that, somewhere, he is alive!”

  “Then we must appeal to him to shew himself, wherever he may be. Bozzy, your tablets. By your leave, ma’am, we’ll address him thus in all the papers (dictating):

  SIR RICHARD CLAYBOURNE went from his Friends in the year ’66, & left his Mother bereft & his Affairs in disorder. Whosoever makes known his whereabouts shall be amply rewarded & he himself is implored to return to the Bosom of his grieving Mother.

  Claybourne Hall in Kent

  April ye 10th, 1772

  “There, madam, let this simple screed be disseminated, especially in the seaports of the New World, where he was last heard of; and my life upon it, if he be alive, Sir Richard will give over his sulks and return to his duties.”

  “I pray it may be so,” murmured my Lady.

  Dr. Johnson looked after the crested coach as it left the court, and shook his head.

  “Let us all pray, for her sake, it may be so.”

  Time passed. I returned to Edinburgh, and quite forgot the problem of the missing Sir Richard Claybourne and his whereabouts; until once more, in th spring of 1773, I visited London.

  I was sitting comfortably with my learned friend in his house in Johnson’s Court, when a billet was handed in. Dr. Johnson put up his well-shaped brows as he read it, and passed it to me.

  “By the grace of Heaven, Sir Richard Claybourne is found!

  Come at once to the Cross Keys.

  P. Claybourne

  at the Cross Keys,

  Wednesday, 10 of ye clock”

  “I suppose we must go,” said Dr. Johnson.

  Wild horses would not have kept me away. We found Lady Claybourne in the wainscotted room abovestairs at the Cross Keys, sitting by the fire in a state of agitation. By her side, in silent concern, stood a grave, smooth-faced person in a decent grey coat. He proved to be Mr. Rollis, the manager of the Claybourne estate. My Lady started up at our advent.

  “O bless you, Dr. Johnson, your screed has brought my Richard home to me!”

  “Is he here?”

  “Not yet. He is but now come into port, and gives me the rendezvous here.”

  “That is so,” murmured Mr. Rollis in a low caressing voice, seating her gently.

  “Then, my Lady, how are you sure it is he?” asked Dr. Johnson gravely.

  “Old Bogie says so.”

  “And who is old Bogie?”

  “My son’s bodyservant from his childhood. To this trusted retainer I gave the task of disseminating your screed in the New World. You understand, Dr. Johnson, I am of French extraction, and come from the island of Haiti, where I still possess estates. There Bogie was born and bred, and there, his task done, he was instructed to await developments.”

  “And there he found Richard?”

  “Sir, strolling in the gardens at Port au Prince, by chance he comes face to face with Richard. What, ’tis Bogie! cries Richard. Master Dickie! cries Bogie, and they embrace. In letters sent before, they describe this affecting scene.”

  “Indeed, my Lady, so they do,” asseverated Rollis.

  What more these letters imported was not revealed, for just then there was a knock at the door, and two men appeared on the threshold. One of them, a little old Negro with such a face as might have been carven on a walnut shell, was but a shadow behind the shoulder of the other. On this one all eyes fixed.

  We saw a tall young man, dark tanned and very thin. His swarthy face, tho’ gaunt and worn, yet strikingly resembled my Lady’s about the eyes, which were brilliant and dark, with smooth deep lids under arching brows. He smiled her very smile, his delicately cut mouth, so like hers, flashing white teeth. His own dark hair was gathered back with a thong. His right sleeve hung empty.

  The length of a heartbeat the room was poised in silence. Then my Lady rose slowly to her feet.

  “’Tis Richard,” she whispered.

  “Aye; ’tis Richard,” murmured Rollis.

  “’Tis Richard: but O Heaven, how changed!”

  In an instant the tall young man went to, her, and she gathered him to
her bosom. Let us draw the veil over a mother’s transports.

  After these sacred moments, Richard made known to us his story.

  “I went from England,” he said, “resolved never to return. But I soon tired of the soldier’s restless life, and I resolved to seek some idyllic shade, far from the haunts of man, and there forget the past. From Jamaica I made my way to Haiti. With forged letters and a false name I obtained employment from our own factor on our own plantation. There all went on to a wish, marred only when in the late earthquake I was pinned by a fallen lintel, which paralyzed my right arm (touching the empty sleeve). Alas, Mother, I have brought you back the half of a man.”

  “Not so!” cried my Lady stoutly. “The arm is there. (So it was, close-clipped to his side within his fustian coat.) We’ll have the best surgeons to it, and it shall mend!”

  “Meanwhile,” he smiled, “you shall see how my left hand serves.”

  To proof, he took her white fingers in his brown ones, and kissed them the while my Lady melted in smiles.

  “Tho’ ’twas my intent never to return,” he went on, “your eloquent appeal, making its way to me, moved my heart towards England.”

  “The thanks be yours, Dr. Johnson,” uttered my Lady.

  “Aye, our thanks to you,” seconded Rollis.

  “And so I came down to Port au Prince, with intent to take ship, and there at the dock I met with dear Bogie—”

  The black man bowed, and wiped a tear with the heel of a dusky pink palm.

  “—and here I am!”

  “There will be rejoicing at Claybourne,” smiled my Lady. “You must be present, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Boswell.”

  Assenting, we parted with a promise to visit the Hall for the coming festivities of the Claybourne Dole on St. George’s Day.

  It was April, with spring in the air. We proceeded forthwith into Kent, tho’ not to Claybourne Hall. Dr. Johnson had a mind first to visit friends at Kentish Old Priory, hard by.

  Our welcome at the Priory, and our diversions thereat, form no part of this tale, except insofar as diversion was afforded at every social gathering by speculation upon the romantick, recrudescence of Sir Richard Claybourne. Those who had caught a glimpse of him importantly expatiated on his resemblance to his lady mother. Some even saw in him a look of his late father, Sir Hubert. Others again thought he resembled nobody, and suspected my Lady had been bamboozled by an imposter. She was just asking to be bamboozled, added certain cynics; while the sentimental joyed to share the bliss of a mother’s heart.