The Return of Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector

by Lillian de la Torre

  “Mr. Benton begs to advertize his Patrons, that his Friend from America, the Chief of the Mohawk Nation, will honour his Benefit by attending in Full War Paint & Feathers.”

  But the puffs in the papers were nothing to Dr. Sam: Johnson.

  “Tschah!” he snorted. “What has Macbeth to do with the late eruptions of Vesuvius, or the Chief of the Mohawk Nation with either? Harlequin may conduct his japeries without me!”

  In the end, it was David Garrick who won him over. The great actor had announced his retirement from the stage. Once more he would play over all his great parts; and then he would play no more. Dr. Johnson loved his fellow-townsman and one-time pupil, little Davy Garrick, whom he scolded and protected with rough affection. When David desired it, and offered the stage box, Dr. Johnson could not refuse to see him enact once more the Thane of Cawdor.

  So now the sturdy philosopher sat planted upon the forward bench in the crimson-hung box, observing and observed. The elegant theatre dazzled the eye. Candles in gilded branches sparkled on new paint and gilt work, jewelled snuff boxes and stock buckles. Fans fluttered in the boxes, and gold-laced shoulders shrugged. On the benches of the pit below, beaux and wits and city merchants were packed together like a box of corks. At the pit front the musick scraped and blared and thumped. From the upper gallery descended raucous laughter and showers of nut shells.

  Over all floated the scent of pulvillio and bergamot, the sharp odour of apple cores and candle wax, the stench of wet felt and leather breeches, and the grating cry of the orange lasses:

  “Won’t ye ha’ some oranges? Some orange chips, ladies and gentlemen! Won’t ye have a bill o’ the play?”

  That they plied a lively trade among the gods of the gallery was proved, in the showers of orange peel that pattered down against the proscenium arch, and rained upon the impassive heads of the King’s Grenadiers at its base. Red coats, spatter-dashes, bandoliers, muskets, bayonets, sugar-loaf helmets and all, there they stood a-spraddle, on guard, to keep the King’s peace. Behind the blank, beefy faces no thought stirred, least of all that the King’s peace might be breached this very night.

  I ran my eye over the crowded house, to salute a friend, ogle a lady of fashion, or stare upon a person of note. In one box I saluted Omiah the South-sea Islander, a picture of graceful coffee-coloured elegance. In another I greeted the Mohawk Chieftain, as good as his word with streaked war paint, feathered top-knot, and war hatchet, all which (for warmth) he wore over his ordinary English suit of clothes. In the pit, Parliament-men and politicians returned my bows with complaisance. As I bent left and right, I gloried to think that I bore a part in this brilliant world of London. It is surely the sum of human felicity.

  While my friend and I thus stared about from the vantage point of the stage box, many an eye stared back, for “Dictionary” Johnson and “Corsica” Boswell were at least as eminent, and some might say as picturesque, as any Islander or Indian Chief. The gazers saw a burly large old man in plain chestnut-coloured stuff, his bushy brown wig pushed back on his broad, seamy brow, his marked, classick features composed and strong. Beside him they would behold myself, Mr. Boswell the advocate, swart of hue, long of nose, quite the great man in a suit of sky-blue sattin and a fashionable wig with high foretop and screwed side curls.

  The tinkle of the prompter’s bell put a stop to staring and ogling. The gallery gods swallowed the last of their oranges and pelted down the last of the peel, and the curtain rose for Act II.

  Enter Banquo, and Fleance bearing a torch before him.

  “How goes the night, boy?”

  Boy! Fleance was no boy, as any man could plainly see, but a most luscious new little “breeches figure.”

  “The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.”

  It was a warm husky voice with an elusive lilt. I envied little Captain Benton as his arm embraced his “son” affectionately. Too soon the brief scene gave way to the sinister doings of murder. Garrick was very great in the scene of the phantom dagger:

  “Now o’er the one half world

  Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

  The curtain’d sleep; witchcraft celebrates

  Pale Hecate’s offerings; and wither’d murder,

  Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,

  Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,

  With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design

  Moves like a ghost …”

  Even as he spoke, real murder stalked ever closer.

  Though the great actor was supreme in the scene of stage murder that followed, I own I thought it long till I might have another glimpse of Fleance’s neat limbs. At last came the scene of the murder of Banquo:

  Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch.

  Third Murderer: “’Tis he.”

  First Murderer: “Stand to’t.”

  Banquo: “It will be rain tonight.”

  First Murderer: “Let it come down!”

  They set upon Banquo.

  Banquo: “O treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!”

  A long scream raised my fell of hair, and the pretty limbs were gone for good. On the green floorcloth Captain Benton died with conviction, he who had looked on death from Quebec to the Havannah. Another moment, and the drop curtain fell. The musick banged up a lively air, designed to cover the noise of the carpenters as they prepared the stage for the banquet scene to follow.

  Fleance’s part was played. I meant to make my bow to the lady before some fribbling maccaroni minced in ahead of me. With a hasty bow to my companion, I made for the Green Room passage.

  To my surprise, I was stopped short by a third Grenadier. As I stood dumb-founded, I heard a well-known voice:

  “You may admit Mr. Boswell.”

  There stood David Garrick. He was in the thick of things. Beyond him, from the stage, I heard furniture rumbling into place. Green-coated attendants ran by, carrying gilded goblets, silvered cardboard platters, and painted wooden fowls for the feast. At the first side-scene a gawky candlesnuffer whistled under his breath as he lighted fresh candles in the wing-ladder sconces.

  The great actor was engaged at either hand. On the one side his dresser, having enveloped his scarlet and gold gauds in a powdering-sheet, snowed fresh powder from a tube onto his military wig. On the other hand his Lady Macbeth engaged his attention. Yet he broke off to address me with complaisance:

  “I don’t mean to bar Mr. Boswell. But you must know, sir, I am so harried with comings and goings, with slamming of doors when I play, that I have decreed an end to-night. There’s a Grenadier at every door, and no one passes in or out till the play is done.—Stay, be known to Mrs. King, late of York—” The actress curtsied stiffly. “Well, ma’am, as I say, go to your mirror and mend your painting, ’tis fitter for Covent Garden portico.”

  “You may say so,” said the virago sullenly, “who have the finest of Chinese colour boxes; but give me leave to tell you, the Spanish wool in the tiring-room is cheap red lead, both unbecoming and ill for the health—”

  “Why, hey, George!” called Garrick hastily as he spied a passing figure. The gentleman came with alacrity—Mr. George Garrick, Davy’s brother, man of business, replica, and alter ego.

  “Here, George, d’ye see, have the goodness to fetch some of my Chinese paper for Mrs. King—and hey, George, d’ye hear, take the lady with you!”

  Mr. George Garrick well understood his function. He steered the lady away, still talking loudly. Mr. David Garrick stared after her with distraction on his mobile countenance.

  “Being manager of a theatre for twenty years,” he said bitterly, “is, I think, as cruel an expiation for any sin, however heinous, as man can devise. A monk in the monastery of LaTrappe is in Paradise, if compared to a manager surrounded by actresses! Actresses! Plague, famine, and pestilence!”

  “Why, sir,” said I, “I grant you yonder Termagant’s a picture of famine; I had liever have seen Mrs. Yates.”


  “No doubt, sir,” shrugged Garrick, “but you must remember, that since this is Mr. Benton’s benefit, ’tis his to pay the expence, take the profit, and fill such parts as he chuses, with his particular friends; as, Mrs. King in Lady Macbeth.”

  “And the new Fleance?”

  “The little Colombine from the Colonies? Aye, she don’t live up to Mr. Benton’s promises; but she’s well enough.”

  “She’s very well; I’ll e’en go and pay my compliments to the lady.”

  “To Miss LaRue? Hey, Boswell, d’ye hear, be wary, Captain Benton has a sudden sword.”

  “I mean but to compliment the lady’s art—”

  “Well, well, you may do so; but cut your raptures short, and return by this door as you came, else you’ll miss the ghost of Banquo, and,” added the great actor slily, “well do I know your curiosity in ghosts and apparitions!”

  With a salute, I entered the Green Room, There, against the elegant panelling, the Three Witches were playing at chuck-farthing, grotesque with their old-fashioned peaked hats, red stomachers, and seamy men’s faces. Miss LaRue’s pretty breeches figure was not to be seen.

  Waving my hand at the Witches, I left the Green Room and mounted to the upper dressing-room tier. Miss LaRue’s dressing-room breathed of scented pomatum and flower-water, but the lady was not there. As I turned to descend, the glimmer of candle light through an open door beckoned me, and I entered.

  Within I found my acquaintance, Captain Ben-ton, seated before his mirror, while his dresser transformed him from Banquo to Banquo’s ghost. The dresser, a tall ramrod of a fellow with deep-set eyes, performed his duties with parade-deck precision. While the Captain closed his eyes, his man chalked his face dead white. With a little finger stained with red rose-pink, then with burnt-ivory black, he deftly sketched a gaping wound across the Captain’s bared throat. Then standing off with critick’s eye, the fellow added a final grewsome touch, a gout of red beside the pallid lip.

  “Bravo, Captain Benton!” I applauded. “Small doubt you’ll affright the galleries. Don’t you affright yourself?”

  “I am not accustomed to be affrighted,” rejoined the old soldier with his cool, humourless smile. “’Tis as well. Can you credit it, Mr. Boswell, I believe my life’s in danger? I grant the stage carpenters are careless dogs—but a machine that misfires, a buttonless foil—such things may happen on any stage, but why always to me?”

  “Egad, sir, you must take care.”

  “Why, so I do. I trust myself to nothing that Murdoch here has not tested first.”

  “He must be invaluable to you,” said I, regarding the silent servitor as he dribbled fresh red paint on the Captain’s second wig.

  “He is so, sir. I’ll never part with Murdoch. We have been together since I saved his life at the Havannah.”

  “How, sir?” I asked, willing to hear a warlike tale.

  “Nay, never mind how. But Murdoch is grateful—hey, Murdoch?—and he rewards me by serving me and making me laugh.” The Captain’s face, blank with powder, looked little enough risible. “Nay, I’ll tell you a secret. Murdoch has the second sight. When the fit’s on him, he may see himself swinging on a gallows at low tide—or me in my blood, eh, Murdoch?—or many another laughable scene—to him who don’t believe in such shimble-shambles.”

  Murdoch, streaking Banquo’s coat with fresh red like blood, muttered to himself, a prayer or a spell. I felt a superstitious shiver.

  “Don’t mutter, my lad,” said the Captain, unmoved. “Did you test the Banquo trap?”

  “Aye, sir.” The man held out the coat, and Captain Benton shrugged into it. “I came early of purpose to test the Banquo trap.”

  “I have a mind,” said I, “to see this famous machine, the Banquo trap.”

  “Come along, then.” Captain Benton led the way. Murdock took up a powder puff, and followed.

  “Bob, a word—” Mrs. King intercepted us at the stair foot. Her face, I noted, was little amended as to paint. Captain Benton raised his brows, but he stopped short.

  “By your leave, Mr. Boswell—you had best go before me. Murdoch, stand off. What’s your pleasure, ma’am?”

  I left the Captain listening blank-faced to the lady’s low-voiced harangue, while Murdoch stood off, and pretended not to hear. Down a rearward stair I found my way, and so under the stage planking. The cellarage smelled musty and dusty. A few yellow candles, winking from iron standards affixed to a forest of posts, made small pools of light in the gloom. In a recess by the stair-foot, two absorbed youths were busy with canvas and lath, wire and wood. One was a snub-nosed lad dressed like a stage carpenter in coarse shirt and leather breeches, with his own yellow curls carelessly tied back with a lace. The other was small and richly drest, with cloudy dark hair held back by a broad ribband. I paused to watch their proceedings.

  “What do you construct, my lads?”

  “’Twill be a giant for Harlequin Gulliver,” said the carpenter youth eagerly, “and Harlequin will fight him. I’ve constructed a machine through which the giant will cast his spear—”

  “A dangerous invention, is it not, a spear flying free?”

  “You may say so, sir,” struck in a second stage carpenter, a tall man with a face like a rasp, who sat on a bulk and whipped a rope’s end. “On the first trial Benny’s machine had like to have killed Captain Benton where he stood at the wing—”

  “But I’ve amended that, father,” cried the snub-nosed lad, “for now I’ve so contrived it that by the same machine the spear flies back again.”

  “I marvel how these miracles may be wrought,” said I.

  “A trip releases a spring,” explained the young projector eagerly, “the spear flies forth, then with a wave of his magick bat Harlequin pulls a blackened packthread, a counterweight falls, and the spear is pulled back again.”

  “Do, Benny, shew him the way of it,” the smaller lad urged eagerly. It was a warm, husky voice, with a familiar lilt.

  “Miss LaRue!” cried Captain Benton’s dresser, coming down the stair. “What do you here? The Captain will be angry!”

  “And with reason, Marie,” said the actor behind him, in his coldest whip-lash voice. “I have expressly forbidden you to lower yourself by consorting with the stage servants. Your passion for the machinery is unwomanly. Retire at once. We shall speak of this later.”

  The girl, still in her boy’s garb as Fleance, went in silence, near tears. The yellow-haired boy scowled, and bunched his fist.

  “Benny!” cried the elder carpenter. “Give over your nonsense, for you’ll be the death of some’un yet.”

  “Aye, plague take all pantomimical projectors,” seconded a sepulchral voice in the dusky backwards of the cellarage. I started. The speaker was a fearful sight, towering in the gloom with tall turretted head dress. A dull red glow beamed upwards on the hideous frown marking his face. Then I manned myself. It was only an actor garbed for his part as Hecate the witch goddess, with the old-fashioned India-ink wire lines of his frown catching the glow from his short clay pipe as he beguiled the time of waiting. I peered close, and with difficulty recognized good-natured old Bransby.

  “Aye,” ruminated he in his slow deep voice, “the pantomime will yet be the death of us all. Well do I mind in the ’59, when we played Harlequin Dr. Faustus, and the ghostly hand with the hammer broke Harlequin’s head instead of the brazen one.”

  “Tedious old fool,” said Captain Benton, not quite inaudibly. “Don’t mind him, Boswell. That’s the cauldron trap, over his head; he’ll rise on it presently.”

  I looked at the place he indicated, a square cut in the stage planking, somehow controlled by ropes that would run along twin upright beams and over a pair of pulleys when the stage carpenters should revolve the drums of a winch below. A similar arrangement controlled the large platform of the “grave trap,” and the “Banquo trap,” a small square platform off to one side.

  The plank platform of the Banquo trap was down, leaving a hole in the stag
e floor above. On the platform was fixed a stool, ready for the ghost to sit on. The dresser assisted his master to mount, gave his face a last flick of white powder, and stood smartly at attention beside the upright.

  All this while, close to our ears, on the pitward side of the adjacent partition, the entr’acte musick was blaring. Now the prompter’s warning bell tinkled. The musick gathered head for a closing burst. The stage carpenters stripped off their shirts. I stared. The older man’s back was crossed and scored with the scars of old lashings, of which he now seemed totally oblivious. He laid hold of the capstan bar that worked the winch. I waved my hand at Captain Benton on the trap, fearsome in the dimness with his white face and blood-streaked lip, and ran up the stair.

  I re-entered the stage box barely in time for the famous banquet scene in Macbeth. The crowded theatre was hushed as the gallery gods held their breath in anticipation of their favorite spectre, the ghost of Banquo.

  Not so my friend beside me, the learned editor of Johnson’s Shakespeare, who held little patience with stage contrivances. In his view, the imagination painted better. He would have perswaded Gar-rick, if he could, to excuse Captain Benton reappearing, and “look but on a stool.” The learned philosopher, therefore, flounced impatiently as the unseen winch, screaking and scraping, heralded the advent of the Banquo trap behind the banquet table. On the instant, above the noise of the machine, a long horrible cry resounded, as of a murdered man in extremis, and in another moment the “blood-boultered Banquo” was heaved into view.

  Small wonder Macbeth dropped the glass he held. Though I had seen the effect contriving, nevertheless I was shocked. It was a sight to chill the stoutest heart. Gaping and distorted of mouth, spattered with glistening red, contorted as if in his death throe, Captain Benton seemed a corpse indeed. He drew a rattling breath, and spoke; but shockingly, a visible gush of blood seemed to strangle the word in his throat. It sounded like “Murder!”