Ralph Plumbe sucked a front tooth; his prominent eyes goggled. Pretty Sally, the serving-maid, passing with the tea tray, stared with open mouth. Little Dr. Thomas joined his fingertips, and seemed to ejaculate a pious word to himself. The Alderman pinned the gem in his daughter’s bosom, a task in which I longed to assist him. She bestowed upon him a radiant smile, like sun through clouds.
Her fickle heart was bought. She yielded up to him with a pretty grace, those love-letters for which she had previously contested, and the footman carried them over the way that very afternoon to poor jilted Jack Rice, while Miss Fanny preened it with her jewel like a peacock.
’Twas a day or two later that I made one in a stroll about the Streatham grounds. Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale beguiled our perambulation in discourse with learned Dr. Thomas about Welsh antiquities. Master Ralph Plumbe, ennuied by the disquisition, threw stones alternately at rooks and at Belle, the black-and-tawny spaniel bitch.
Coming by the kitchen garden, we marked curvesome Sally, in her blue gown and trim apron, skimming along under the wall. She passed us under full sail, with the slightest of running curtseys. Mrs. Thrale caught her sleeve.
“Pray, whither away so fast?”
“Only to the kitchen, ma’am.”
Our sharp little hostess pounced.
“What have you in your hand?”
“Nothing, ma’am.”
Mrs. Thrale, for all she is small, has a strong man’s hand. She forced open the girl’s plump fingers and extracted a folded billet.
“So, miss. You carry billets doux.”
“No, ma’am. I found it, if you please, ma’am,” cried the girl earnestly.
“Ho ho,” cried hobbledehoy Master Ralph, “’tis one of Fan’s, I’ll wager.”
“We shall see,” said Mrs. Thrale curtly, and unfolded the billet.
I craned my neck. ’Twas the oddest missive (save one) that I have ever seen. ’Twas all writ in an alphabet of but two letters:
aabababbabbaaaabaabaababbabbabbaaaabaaba
abbaa’abbabbaabaaabaabaaabbaabaaabaa
aabbbaaaaaababaababaaabaaababa’aabaaaaaaabaabb
abbabbaabbabaaaababa’aaaaabaabbabbaaaabaa
abaaabaaaaaabaabaabaaabaa
aabbaaaaaabaaaaaaabbaabaaaabbbaaaaaabaaaabbaaaabaa
aaaaaabaaaababaababaaabaaaabababaaabaaaaaabaaabbaabaaba
baaabaaaaaababaababaaabaaababaabaaabaaba
Learned Dr. Thomas scanned the strange lines.
“’Tis some unknown, primordial tongue, I make no doubt.”
“’Tis the talk of sheep!” I cried. “Baabaaabaa!”
“No, sir; ’tis cypher,” said Dr. Sam: Johnson.
“Good lack,” screeched Mrs. Thrale, “’tis a French plot, I’ll be bound, against our peace.”
“No, ma’am,” I hazarded, half in earnest, “’tis some imprisoned damsel, takes this means to beg release.”
“Pfoh,” said Mrs. Thrale, “ever the ruling passion, eh, Mr. Boswell?”
“To what end,” demanded Dr. Johnson, “do we stand disputing here, when we might be reading the straight of the message?”
“My husband has the new book of cyphers,” cried Mrs. Thrale, “I will fetch it at once.”
She sailed off, pretty Sally forgotten; who put her finger to her eye and stood stock-still in the path, until, perceiving how eagerly I followed where Dr. Johnson and the cypher led, she flounced off with dry eyes.
Dr. Johnson made for the drawing-room, and we streamed after him. Seating himself by the window, he peered at the strange paper. Dr. Thomas, Ralph Plumbe, and I peered with him, and Fanny came from the mirror, where we had surprized her preening, to peer too.
As Dr. Johnson smoothed the billet, I threw up my hands.
“What can be done with this!” I exclaimed. “We are to find out the 24 letters of the alphabet, and in this whole message we find but two symbols.”
“What man can encypher, man can decypher,” replied Dr. Johnson sententiously, “more especially when the encypherer is one of the inmates of Streatham, and the decypherer is Sam: Johnson. But see where our hostess comes.”
She came empty-handed. The new book of cyphers was not to be found.
“Then,” said Dr. Johnson, “we must make do with what we have in our heads. Let us examine this billet and see what it has to say to us.”
We hung over his shoulder, Mrs. Thrale, Dr. Thomas, the Plumbe children, and I. Ralph sucked air through his teeth in excitement, little Fanny’s pretty bosom lifted fast.
“Now, ma’am,” began Dr. Johnson, addressing Mrs. Thrale, not ill-pleased to display his learning, “you must know, that cyphers have engaged the attention of the learned since the remotest antiquity. I need but name Polybius, Julius Africanus, Philo Mechanicus, Theodoras Bibliander, Johannes Walchius, and our own English Aristotle, Francis Bacon—”
“Oh, good lack, sir,” cried little Fanny with a wriggle, “what does the paper say?”
“In good time, miss,” replied the philosopher with a frown. “We have here 330 characters, all either a or b; writ in 16 groups on a page from a pocket book, with a fair-mended quill. ’Tis notable, that the writer wrote his letters in clusters of five, never more, never less; you may see between every group the little nodule of ink where the pen rested. Let us mark the divisions.”
With his pen he did so. I watched the lines march:
aabab/abbab/baaaa/baabaababb/abbab/baaaa/baaba
abbaa’/abbab/baaba/aabaa/baaabbaaba/aabaa
aabbb/aaaaa/ababa/ababa/aabaa …
“We now perceive,” said Dr. Johnson as his pen flicked, “that we have to do, not with a correspondence of letter for letter, but for groups of letters. We have before us, in short, Mr. Boswell, the famous bi-literal cypher of the learned Francis Bacon; as set forth, I make no doubt, in Thrale’s missing book of cyphers.”
Mrs. Thrale clapped her hands.
“Now we shall understand it. Mark me, ’tis a plot of the French against us.”
“Alas,” said Dr. Johnson, “I do not carry the key in my head; but I shall make shift to reconstruct it. ’Tis many years since I was a corrector of the press; but the printer’s case still remains in my mind to set me right on the frequencies of the letters in English.”
“Depend upon it,” muttered Mrs. Thrale stubbornly, “’tis in French.”
“You will find,” he went on calmly, “e occurs the oftenest; next o, then a and i. To find out one consonant from another, remember also their frequency, first d, h, n, r, s, t; then the others, in what order I forget; but with these we may make shift.”
By this calculation the learned philosopher determined the combination aabaa to represent e; when a strange fact transpired. Of the sixteen groups, representing perhaps the sixteen words of the message, nine ended with that combination! Dr. Johnson considered this in conjunction with the little marks like apostrophes, and glowered at Mrs. Thrale.
“Can it be French after all?”
In fine, it was; for proceeding partly by trial and errour, and partly by his memory of the cypher’s system, the learned philosopher made shift to reconstruct the key, and soon the message began to emerge:
“Fort mort n’otes te—”
“’Tis poetick!” screeched Mrs. Thrale. “Strong death snatch thee not away! Alack, this is a billet doux after all, a lettre d’amour to some enamoured fair!”
“Oh, ay?” commented the philosopher drily, penning the message:
“Fort mort n’otes te halle l’eau oui l’aune ire te garde haine aille firent salle lit.”
“’Tis little enough poetick,” I muttered, translating the strange hodge-podge:
“Strong death snatch thee not away–market–the water, yes–the alder–anger–keep thee hatred–let him go–they made room–bed.”
“O lud, here’s a waspish message,” cried Fanny.
“Yet what’s this of a market, water, and an alder tree?”
“There’s an alder tree,” cried Ral
ph with a toothy inspiration, “by the kitchen pump!”
Infected by his excitement, we all ran thither. There was the water, sure enough, in the old pump by the kitchen garden, and drooping its branches over it, not an alder, but a hoary old willow, whose hollow trunk knew the domesticities of generations of owls. There was nothing of any note in the vicinity.
This strange adventure made us none the easier; the less, as we encountered, at his ease on the bench by the kitchen door, the one-legged sailorman. He pulled his forelock surlily, but did not stir. His very particular wooden leg was strapped in its place, and the iron-shod stump was sunk deep in the mud of the door-yard. Belle snapped at it, and had a kick in the ribs for her pains.
The adventure of the cypher much disquieted the Alderman, who incontinently decreed that Miss Fanny’s brilliant must be made secure in Thrale’s strong-box. Now was repeated the contest of pouts against Papa; Miss Fanny moped, and would not be pleased. At last by treaty the difficulty was accommodated. Let the Alderman make the gem secure today, and Miss Fanny might wear it in honour of the twelve days of Christmas, to begin at dusk on Christmas Eve precisely.
Christmas Eve came all too slowly, but it came at last. We were all in holiday guise, I in my bloom-coloured breeches, Dr. Thomas in a large new grizzle wig, Ralph in peach-colour brocade with silk stockings on his skinny shanks. Even Dr. Sam: Johnson honoured the occasion in his attire, with his snuff-colour coat and brass buttons, and a freshly powdered wig provided by the care of Mr. Thrale.
The ladies coruscated. Mrs. Alderman Plumbe billowed in flame-colour sattin. Mrs. Thrale had a handsome gown in the classick stile, with great sleeves, and gems in her hair. Miss Fanny wore a silken gown, of the tender shade appropriately called maiden’s blush; ’twas cut low, and her brooch gleamed at her bosom. Even Belle the spaniel was adorned with a great riband tied on with care by the white hand of Miss Fanny.
’Twas Thrale’s care to uphold the old customs, and play the ’squire; while at the same time he had a maccaroni’s contempt for the lower orders. ’Twas decreed, therefore, that we should have our Christmas games in the library on the lower floor, while the servants might have their merry-making in the servants’ hall, and the strolling rusticks had perforce to receive their Christmas gratuities withoutside.
We supped upon Christmas furmety, a dish of wheat cakes seethed in milk with rich spices. I relished it well, and did equal justice to the noble minced pyes served up with it.
Supper done, we trooped to the library. Impeded by an armful of green stuff, Dr. Johnson came last, edging his way to the door. On the threshold, as he sought to manœuvre the unmanageable branches through, the crookedest one fairly lifted his fresh-powdered Christmas wig from his head, and as he clutched at it with a start, precipitated it in a cloud of white onto the floor. I relieved him of his awkward burden, and good-hu-mouredly he recovered his head-covering and clapped it back in its place, all awry.
In the library all was bustle. It was my part to wreathe the mantel with green. Pretty Miss Fanny lighted the Christmas candles, looking the prettier in their glow, her sparkling eyes rivalling the brilliant at her breast. Thrale ignited the mighty “Yule clog.”
Dr. Johnson was in great expansion of soul, saluting his hostess gallantly under the mistletoe bough, and expatiating on the old Christmas games of his boyhood.
“Do but be patient, Dr. Johnson, we’ll shew you them all,” cried Thrale with unwonted vivacity. He was busied over a huge bowl. In it heated wine mingled its fumes with orange peel and spices, while whole roasted apples by the fire were ready to be set abob in it. ’Twas the old-time wassail bowl; though Dr. Johnson persisted in referring to its contents, in his Lichfield accent, as poonch.
“Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green,
Here we come a-wandering, so fair to be seen …”
The notes of the song crept up on us gradually, coming from the direction of the common, till by the time the second verse began, the singers stood in the gravel path before the library windows; which we within threw up, the better to hear their song:
“We are not daily beggars, that beg from door to door,
But we are your neighbours’ children, whom you have seen before …”
Past all doubt, so they were. The servants had crowded to the door-step in the mild night, and merry greetings were interchanged as they found friends among the waits. A light snow was drifting down. The rusticks were fancifully adorned with ribands, and wore greens stuck in their hats; they carried lanthorns on poles, and sang to the somewhat dubious accompaniment of an ancient serpent and a small kit fiddle. In the ring of listening faces I spied the surly visage of the one-legged sailor. Belle the spaniel spied her enemy too. She escaped from the arms of Miss Fanny, eluded the groom at the house-door, and dashed out into the mud to snap at his heel. She came back with a satisfied swagger, the more as she had succeeded in untying her riband and befouling it in the mud. Miss Fanny admonished her, and restored the adornment.
“Now here’s to the maid in the lily-white smock
Who slipped to the door and pulled back the lock,
Who slipped to the door and pulled back the pin
For to let these merry wassailers walk in.”
There was no suiting the action to the word. Thrale passed the cup out at window, keeping the lower orders still withoutside. The waits wiped their mouths on their sleeves, and sang themselves off:
“Wassail, wassail all over the town,
Our bread it is white and our ale it is brown,
Our bowl it is made of the green maple tree—
In bur wassailing bowl we’ll drink unto thee!”
Next the mummers came marching. Like the waits, they had been recruited from the lads about Streatham. Though every man was disguised in fantastick habiliments, among them the canine instinct of Belle unerringly found out her friends. His own mother would not have known the Doctor, he presenting to the world but a high-bridged nose and a forest of whiskers; but Belle licked his hand, the while he acknowledged the attention by scratching her ear and making her riband straight. She fawned upon St. George (by which, “’Tis the butcher’s boy!” discovered Mrs. Thrale) and put muddy foot-marks on the breeches of the Old Man, before her attentions were repelled. She came back with her tongue out and her riband, once again, a-trail. Miss Fanny, defeated, neglected to restore it. She crowded with the rest of the company in the window as the link-boys lifted their torches, and upon the snowy sward the rusticks of Streatham played the famous mumming play of St. George and the Dragon.
“Pray, sir, take notice,” said the pleased Dr. Johnson, “is not this a relique of great antiquity, the hieratic proceedings of yonder sorcerous Doctor with his magick pill? Pray, my man—” out at window to the Doctor, “how do you understand these doings?”
“Nor I don’t, sir,” replied the player huskily, and carried on his part to a chorus of laughter from within.
“And God bless this good company,” concluded St. George piously. He caught the heavy purse that Thrale threw him, weighed it, and added in his own voice, “God bless ye, sir.”
The guests added their largesse. Plumbe hurled a piece of gold; Dr. Johnson and I scattered silver; even withered little Dr. Thomas must needs add his half-crown. ’Twas scarce worth the trouble he went to, first to fumble in his capacious pocket for the destined coin, then to wrap it in a leaf from his pocket book, finally to aim it precisely into the hands of St. George. His heart was better than his marksmanship; his shot went wide, and a scramble ensued.
“God bless all here,” chorused the rusticks, and made off with their torches as we within closed the windows and clustered about the fire. Then the bowl was set ablaze, and we adventured our fingers at snapdragon, catching at the burning raisins with merry cries.
“Fan, my love,” said the Alderman suddenly, “where is thy Christmas box?”
Everybody looked at the flushed girl, standing with a burned fingertip between her pink lips li
ke a baby.
“The man,” she half-whispered, “the man, Papa, he looked at it so, while the mummers played, I was affrighted and slipped it into a place of safety.”
She indicated an exquisite little French enamel vase.
“’Tis here, Papa.”
The Alderman snatched the vase and turned it up. ’Twas empty. Miss Fanny’s Christmas box was gone.
The Alderman turned purple.
“The servants—” he roared.
“Pray, Mr. Plumbe, calm yourself,” said Dr. Johnson, “we must look for Miss Fanny’s diamond within this room.”
He pointed, first to the snow now lightly veiling the ground beneath the window, then to the splotch of powder on the threshold. In neither was there any mark of boot or shoe.
But, though the cholerick Alderman turned out the chamber, and though every one present submitted to the most thorough of searches, though Plumbe even sifted out the ashes of the Yule clog, little Fanny’s Christmas box was not to be found.
“This is worse than Jack Rice a thousand times,” sniggered her brother in my ear.
It was so. Poor pretty Fanny was in disgrace.
“’Tis a mean thief,” cried Dr. Johnson in noble indignation, “that robs a child, and be sure I’ll find him out.”
Poor Fanny could only sob.
’Twas enough to mar the merriment of Christmas Day. Little Fanny kept her chamber, being there admonished by good Dr. Thomas. The lout Ralph wandered about idly, teizing Belle until the indignant spaniel nipped him soundly; upon which he retired into the sulks. The Alderman and his lady were not to be seen. The master and mistress of the house were busied doing honour to the day. I was by when they dispensed their Christmas beef upon the door-step; pretty Sally handed the trenchers about, and there in the crowd of rusticks, stolidly champing brawn, I saw the one-legged sailor. He seemed quite at home.
Dr. Johnson roamed restlessly from room to room.
BOSWELL: “Pray, sir, what do you seek so earnestly?”
JOHNSON: “Sir, a French dictionary.”
BOSWELL: “To what end?”
Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector Page 14