The Return of Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector

by Lillian de la Torre

  The idea was acclaimed by Miss Fan’s Coven of young fellows.

  “Do, uncle, let us have him,” drawled Talley with his frozen smile.

  “We’ll initiate him, I warrant you,” grunted a rustical lad at his elbow.

  “Well, well, Fan, have your way,” said Sir Francis, suppressing a smile. “You can manage him, no doubt. There’s time yet, and you may follow on.”

  Laggett loosed me with a grin, and melted into the gloom. The Witch turned her green eyes to me.

  “Are you afraid?”

  I was; but I would not say so. Dark figures were moving deeper into the cave; but the Coven stood by. In a trice I was hoodwinked with a vast black neckerchief. It smelt vilely of barnacles. I was propelled down a rough slope, and thus began an adventure from which I came home dripping wet, with my head in a whirl.

  There was still a light in the parlour when I crept in, as I had departed, by the kitchen door. In the fitful light from the hearth-fire, the same copper pot showed me my plight: lank hair dripping, face washed clean in the highlights and still murky with burnt cork in the hollows.

  “Well, Mr. Boswell,” came my friend’s voice from the inner door, “where have you been, and what have you done, to come home in this pickle?”

  “I went to the Sabbat,” I muttered.

  Our host, beside him, uttered an ejaculation. It sounded like a prayer. He bustled about me solicitously, pressing upon me a mighty dram of strong waters, fetching his own voluminous flannel bedgown to warm me. Dr. Johnson planted himself on the settle by the fire, and demanded my story.

  “Well, sir, the Coven undertook to initiate me, that I might become fit to attend the Sabbat. Miss took my hand, sir, and never let it go through thick and thin, and so I endured.”

  “Endured what, sir?”

  “First, I swore an oath, sir, if ever I tattled I desired the Devil might carry me off, body and bones, toenails and tripes … et caetera,” I faltered, swallowing. “I’ll say no more.”

  But my mentor feared neither man nor the Devil (tho’ our host appeared to fear both), and his determination overrode my reluctance. I went on:

  “Then, sir, being become one of them, I was released from the blindfold. I found myself in a commodious room dug in the chalk. Torches in standards gave light. In an alcove stood a blackened altar, incised with strange symbols and lighted by a pair of black candles. Before it rose the ever-smiling Talley, wearing a vestment like a carter’s smock. He presided over the ceremony as I was baptized anew with—with unholy water, most noisome; ask me no further on that head.”

  “By what name, sir?” asked my friend curiously.

  “Brimstone,” I mumbled.

  “And then?”

  “And then, sir, I was dubbed.”

  “Dubbed, sir?” asked little Ashton, fetching more brandy.

  “Dubbed knight, sir. With a dung fork. The whole Coven shared in the dubbing. My shoulder is sore. “I wriggled it tentatively. Nothing seemed to be broken.

  “And we are to call you—”

  “Sir Brimstone of Tophet.” I had to grin at that. “After—further ceremonies”—I gulped and rushed on—“there ensued the Black Mass they tell of.”

  “Go on.”

  I called back the scene to memory, the smoky light flickering on the blackened faces, the cabbalistick gestures and frozen smile of the celebrant, cousin Talley.

  “Well, sir, we all bowed low, but in reverse, presenting our posteriors to the alter. Talley mumbled from a black-bound book—I think he was reading it backwards. He made magical passes, and consecrated a turnip.”

  “A what, sir?”

  “A turnip, sir. We all bowed again, and the Devil appeared.”

  “O come, Mr. Boswell.”

  “I assure you, sir, there was a mighty clanking of chains, and the Devil leaped up upon the altar. He hunkered down and ate the consecrated turnip, with long black fingernails and teeth like a shark. My head swam. When I looked again, the Devil was gone, and Sir Francis Flashwood was standing on the altar step. Enough, he said, be off, the Sabbat awaits us. Hastily Talley blessed us with an upside-down benediction. The entire Coven seized torches from the standards and followed Sir Francis into the inner recesses of the cave.”

  “And did you also follow?”

  “Well, sir, you may suppose that these events had agitated the tender bosom of the young lady. She clung to me, sir, and I—ah, comforted her. Before her agitation was soothed, I know not what length of time passed; but suddenly we became aware that the Coven had left us behind. Torch in hand, we hastened on to the banks of Styx—”

  “Well, sir, hac iter ad impia Tartara mittit, that is the way to the under world,” smiled my friend. “Was Charon there to ferry you?”

  “No, sir, ’tis an underground water course they call Styx, by which they sail to the Sabbat.”

  “In a sieve?”

  “May be, sir. When we reached the murky bank, all boats were gone save one crazy shallop, most like a sieve indeed. In this we made shift to embark. Scarce had I begun to ply the pole, however, when the young lady, terrified anew by I know not what, flung her arms about me, lost the torch in the water, and overset the boat. ’Twas my luck that the stream was shallow.

  “Well, sir, what were we to do? Our hope of following to the Sabbat sank with the boat. Dripping wet, we crept back towards the light of the two black candles, and so out into the grounds of the Abbey. There I looked to be invited in; but no such thing—my fair companion pushed me out at the little foot door beside the gate, and peremptorily bade me go home to bed.”

  “Sage advice, after all that horse play.”

  “Horse play! Nay, sir, could you have seen that diabolic rout with their blackened faces—”

  “Blackened faces!” Dr. Johnson put up his brows and little Ashton sucked in his breath, as they exchanged a look.

  “Why were we not told of this?” demanded Johnson. “On with dry breeches, Bozzy. I’ve a mind to attend this Sabbat after all.”

  “How then? The boats are all gone.”

  “Above ground. Come, your breeches.”

  Mr. Ashton, horrified at our daring, barred the street door and retired to bed, leaving us to depart inconspicuously by the kitchen and the garden gate. We slipped in at the Abbey postern. Nothing was stirring in the grounds, and the mansion lay dark. A waning moon was rising.

  From the cave mouth we went on through the wood, following what I remembered of the passages beneath. Where I guessed Styx to run, we angled off on rising ground, and so came out in the open on Hoy Head. No one was to be seen there, but a hum of voices told us we were nearing the scene of the Sabbat.

  “Down, sir,” muttered my friend. “We must not be detected.”

  Prone, we worked our way through rough stems and grasses to the edge of the bluff, and looked over.

  Below us, on Hoy Cove, the Coven and a host of black-face followers were active as ants around an ant-hill. They were not conjuring up the Old Scratch. They were prosaically busy unloading a fleet of small boats and carrying the freight up the side of a sturdy coasting vessel lying at anchor in the cove. I saw kegs—“French brandy,” muttered Dr. Johnson—bales—“French silks”—japanned boxes—“China tea—to such a smuggler’s fortune is Miss Fan an heiress!”

  And there was Miss Fan herself, in a red hunting coat, astride a tall bay horse; and beside her, mounted too, Sir Francis Flashwood and Mr. Thomas Talley directed operations.

  The better to view Miss Fan, fetching in her tight buckskin breeches, I edged forward. A stone dislodged, and rolled down the steep incline. Blackened faces turned upward, there was a shout, and several of the band made for the long zigzag path that snaked up the bluff.

  “Run!” said my intrepid friend, adding grimly, “for your life!”

  Nimbly, considering his bulk, he led the way. Our feet pounded along the path through the wood. We had passed the cave mouth, and were skirting the deer park, when we heard them shouting on the head
land. Twigs cracked under running feet on the wood path, and lent us wings. We stumbled through the postern, crossed the road, gained our garden, tumbled in at the kitchen door, and drove the bolt home.

  “Quick, Mr. Boswell, your nightcap.” He was up the stair and cramming on his own. “Your bedgown!” He was out of his breeches and into his own gown. I followed suit as a mighty summons began to sound on the front door.

  “What shall I do?” wailed our host, appearing in his shirt. “They are desperate men, they’ll kill us all!”

  “Go to bed, and leave this to me,” said Johnson resolutely. “I’ll deal with them, I warrant you.”

  The front door cracked alarmingly under the battering. Johnson put back the shutter and thrust his head out at window.

  “Leave off your noise, you scoundrels!” he cried sharply. “The household’s asleep. What’s the mighty matter that you raise such a pother?”

  Our pursuers looked up. It was the grim gamekeeper Laggett who headed the posse. He growled something about poachers and trespassers.

  “Be off, man, you know we are neither,” commanded Johnson.

  “Then they are sheltering here,” snarled Laggett, and resumed his tattoo on the door.

  I heard no sound of hooves on the chalk roadway, but suddenly three horses were at the gate.

  “Muffled with leather,” muttered Johnson.

  Three faces took the faint moonlight—Sir Francis’, Mr. Talley’s, Miss Fan’s.

  “That will do, Laggett, be off,” said Sir Francis. The understrappers withdrew.

  “You, sir (to Johnson), bid Mr. Boswell come down.”

  “I am here, Sir Francis,” said I over my friend’s shoulder.

  “You have put your long nose into our affairs this night, Mr. Boswell. I strongly counsel you to keep your tongue between your teeth hereafter.”

  “Be at ease, father,” struck in Miss Fan. “Mr. Boswell suffered things, and did things, this night in the cave, that he would not chuse to have told.”

  “That is true,” I muttered.

  “As long as he is silent—and no longer—so are we.”

  I heard this outrageous bargain proposed by that bee-stung lip with revulsion. Yet I knew she spoke true.

  “I am not likely to blab,” I granted unwillingly.

  “So, sir,” said Dr. Johnson blandly, “Mr. Boswell is muzzled. But who will muzzle me?”

  Three heads jerked up. He stood four-square in the casement, magisterial in spite of the nightcap.

  “Yes, sir, I know the secret of Styx, and by my own eyes, not Mr. Boswell’s. If you would have me be silent, hear my terms. My friend Ashton goes unmolested; and you, Sir Francis, you will see to it that smuggled goods are no longer hidden on Styx.”

  “I know not what you refer to,” said Sir Francis frostily.

  “Put it how you will, sir, so the traffick ceases. And you, Miss, smuggling is no trade for a lady. Give it over.”

  “I shall, sir,” smiled Miss Fan, “for I have given my hand to Tom here, and once wed, he decrees it, no more night riding.”

  “Give you joy, Mr. Talley,” said Dr. Johnson.

  Talley bowed in the saddle, his frozen smile softening. I would have wished joy, but the words stuck in my throat.

  “Goodnight, Sir Brimstone!” the laughing voice floated back to me as the horses moved off silent-footed.

  “So, sir,” said I over the breakfast tea tray, “Sir Francis is but a common smuggler, no diabolist, and there was never a Black Mass in the cave—”

  “I did not say that, sir,” said Johnson. “Sir Francis is a man of many talents; he is not called ‘Hell Fire Francis’ for nothing. Of course there have been Black Masses in the cave. Why otherwise the altar, the cabbalistick adornments, the black candles, all so ready to hand? But I knew very quickly that what was done to you was no genuine Black Mass, but meer horse play, designed to fright you into keeping silence.”

  BOSWELL: And Miss overset the boat o’ purpose?

  JOHNSON: To keep you away from the smugglers’ ‘Sabbat,’ that is true.

  BOSWELL: And I dreamed the Devil on the altar? A datura dream perhaps?

  JOHNSON: No, sir. The ‘Devil’ was real. We glimpsed him in a tree in the deer park. ’Tis a baboon, a most intelligent beast, of whom Sir Francis was bragging all the way to the house ’tother day. His name is Puckrel. I daresay the gamekeeper fetched Puckrel into the cave on his chain, and loosed him at the appropriate moment, of purpose to affright you.

  BOSWELL: But how did you know that smuggling was toward?

  JOHNSON: By the blackened faces. ’Tis smugglers black their faces. Witches go nude to the Sabbat.

  BOSWELL: How come you, sir, to be so instructed in the Black Arts?

  JOHNSON: By reading King James his Daemonologie—Olympiodorus—and the rest. But no matter, the Devil is not in it, save as he tempted Sir Francis to turn smuggler.

  BOSWELL: Yet you let him go free.

  JOHNSON: I am no catchpoll, sir. But if he persists I shall certainly denounce him.

  BOSWELL: But why do they play at witchcraft while working at smuggling?

  ASHTON: To affright the country folk, and keep them at home while the smugglers are abroad.

  BOSWELL: And why send the smuggled goods boating on Styx?

  ASHTON: The caves of Westcombe are sea caves, sir. Mining chalk was only Sir Francis’ pretext for making the natural caves more commodious for his purposes. Styx is an arm of the sea, giving on the harbour on one side, and on Hoy Cove on the other. Thus may the Coven unload a French vessel in deep water, hide the laden boats on Styx, and come out on the Cove side at their leisure, to load the smuggled goods again on a coasting vessel for distribution. ’Tis safer than pack horses.—Dr. Johnson, your cup is empty (pouring).

  BOSWELL: You seem knowledgeable in these matters, Mr. Ashton.

  ASHTON: Of course I am, sir. Was not I formerly a landwaiter with His Majesty’s Customs? And who has not heard of the Westcombe Blacks?

  JOHNSON (setting down his cup): Well, well, sir, they’ll be heard of no more, I warrant you.

  BOSWELL: And thus, sir, have you once more rendered a publick service by your art of detection; tho’ we are not to brag of it.

  JOHNSON (smiling): And thus have you, ‘Sir Brimstone of Tophet,’ fortunately escaped a matrimonial alliance with THE WESTCOMBE WITCH.

  [This story was suggested by the raffish career of “Hell-Fire Francis” Dash wood. With his ruined Abbey at Medmenham sheltering blasphemous “monks” and “nuns,” his erotic garden, his curious church tower, his rumored Black Masses in the chalk caves of West Wycombe (which these days are open to the public for a trifle), his Indian baboon and his beautiful wild daughter, it was a career too wide-ranging to be encompassed in a single story. (For all of it, see Ronald Fuller, Hell-fire Francis, London: Chatto and Windus, 1939.) That Sir Francis was ever involved in such goings-on as are here depicted is, of course, my fictitious contribution to his legend. This is why I have called him out of his right name, as “Sir Francis Flashwood” of “Westcombe.”

  “You can not,” said my husband the Professor severely, “have Dr. Johnson attending a Black Mass!”

  “No,” I replied, “but Boswell can!”

  Boswell, I reminded him, liked to savor—and record—all his emotions, including his fears and terrors, and sometimes he courted such Gothic feelings. I am sure he would have been delighted to attend a Black Mass and tremble at its horrors.]

  THE BANQUO TRAP

  With my learned friend, Dr. Sam: Johnson, I sat enthralled in the dusky stage box, shivering at the ominous words of the most notorious murderer of all time—Macbeth; Thane of Cawdor—spoken in the thrilling voice of the most famous actor of our era, the renowned David Garrick:

  “My thought,

  Whose murder yet is but fantastical,

  Shakes so my single state of man that function

  Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is

  But what is not …�
��

  On the projecting stage-apron below us, erect in his gold-laced red coat and snowy-powdered tail-wig, his dark eyes sparkling, the great little man held every eye. Scarce a glance was spared for his fellow-general, Banquo, as erect and as little, in like regimentals. Yet Captain Robert Benton well suited the part of a soldier, for he had been an officer of the King’s marines, raking it and ruffling it from Quebec to the Havannah, before he brought his small ramrod figure and blank handsome face, his nasal voice and stiff-arm gestures, from regimental theatricals to the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.

  As the two red-coated figures strutted the stage in the glare of a hundred candles, little did we perceive a shadow, the shadow of murder all too real, that dogged them, to snuff out a life, and—but for Dr. Sam: Johnson—to bring the great actor’s farewell season to a premature and disgraceful conclusion.

  Well pleased with murder yet fantastical, I rumbled my feet in applause as the two red coats quitted the stage. Then the stage grooves scraped, and the blasted-heath back scene parted and slid off to reveal Macbeth’s painted canvas castle. I leaned forward, eager for a first glimpse of the new Lady Macbeth.

  On stalked a lanky virago in red and black, shaking three sable feathers in her high powdered wig. I sat back, disgusted. Even the gaudy little page that bore up her gold-encrusted train seemed to wrinkle his snub nose behind her back. She planted herself, opened her mouth, and declaimed. At my side Dr. Johnson snorted through his nose as one false emphasis followed another. But soon Garrick was there to cast his spell again, and once more we sat rapt till the act drop fell.

  As the musick struck up, I stole a sideways glance, hoping my companion was not too ill pleased. I had had enough to do to perswade him hither; tempting him, but vainly, with the puffs in the papers:

  “At the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, this present Monday, being May 13, 1776, (for the benefit of Mr. Benton) will be presented the Tragedy of Macbeth; the Principal Characters by Mr. Garrick, Mr. Benton, and Mrs. King (this Night only); the other Parts to the best Advantage. In Act IV, a Dance of Furies, the Vocal Parts by Mr. Bransby &c.

  “To which will be added (by particular Desire) a Pantomime Entertainment call’d Harlequin Cherokee, with Alterations and Additions, including two Views of the late Eruption of Mount Vesuvius; the Whole to conclude with a grand Representation of the Landing of the Cherokees in America. Harlequin, Mr. Wright; Pantaloon, Sig. Grimaldi; Colombine, Miss LaRue (from Quebec.)