“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 error, and partly by his memory of the cipher’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 hodgepodge:
“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 Ralph 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, 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 merrymaking in the servant’s 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 manoeuvre 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-humouredly 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 our 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 bac
k 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 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 finger-tip between her pink lips like 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, teasing 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?”
JOHNSON: “To read yonder cypher aright; for sure ’tis the key to tell us, whither Fanny’s brilliant has flown.”
BOSWELL: “Why, sir, the words are plain; ’tis but the interpretation that eludes us.”
JOHNSON: “No, sir, the words are not plain; the words are somehow to be transposed. Now, sir, could I but find a French dictionary printed in two columns, ’twould go hard but we should find, in the second column, the words we seek, jig-by-jole with the meaningless words we now have.”
Upon this I joined the search; but in twenty-four hours we advanced no further in reading the cypher.
After dinner the next day I came upon Dr. Johnson conning it over by the fire, muttering the words to himself:
“Te halle l’eau oui l’aune ire te garde haine...”
I was scarce attending. An idea had occurred to me.
“Yonder hollow willow near the garden—” I began.
“How?” cried Dr. Johnson, starting up.
“The hollow willow near the garden—”
“You have it, Bozzy!” cried my companion in excitement. “Te hollow willown ear te gard en.”
So strange was the accent and inflection with which my revered friend repeated my words, that I could only stare.
“Read it!” he cried. “Read it aloud!”
He thrust the decyphered message under my nose. I read it off with my best French accent, acquired in my elegant grand tour.
“Can’t you see,” cried Dr. Johnson, “when you speak it, the words are English—the hollow willow near the garden! ’Twill be the miscreants’ post-office, ’tis clear to me now. See, they had cause to distrust the maid who was go-between.”
He pointed to the last words: aille firent salle lit, I fear Sally.
“How did you do it, Bozzy?”
“I, sir? Trust me, ’twas the furthest thing from my mind. It had come into my head, perhaps by the alder was meant yonder hollow willow—”
“No, sir,” returned Dr. Johnson, “there came into your mind, a picture of the hollow willow, because you heard, without knowing that you heard, the words I uttered; and when you spoke the words, I recognized that you were repeating mine. But come, sir; let us investigate this thieves’ post-office.”
He fairly ran out at the door.
Coming suddenly about the corner of the house, we surprized the sailor-man standing under the wall of the kitchen garden; and I could have sworn that I caught the swirl of a skirt where the wall turned. As we came up, the one-legged man finished knotting something into his neckerchief, and made off with astonishing speed. He stumped his way across the common in the direction of the ale-house on the other side.
“Shall we not catch him up?” I cried.
“In good time,” replied my friend. “First we must call for the post.”
Accordingly we lingered to sound the hollow tree. Save for some grubs and beetles, and a quantity of feathers, it was empty.
Our fortune was better when we passed under the wall where the one-legged man had stood. There we picked up the second of the strange messages that came under our eyes at Streatham.
’Twas a strip of paper, scarce an inch wide and some twelve inches long. Along both its edges someone had made chicken-tracks with a pen. One end was roughly torn away. Search as we might, the missing fragment was not to be found. At last we repaired to the house.
In the library we encountered Mrs. Thrale, in philosophical discourse with Dr. Thomas. She looked at the strange piece of paper, and gave a screech.
“’Tis Ogam!”
“Ogam?”
“I know it well, ’tis the antique writing of the Irish,” said Dr. Thomas, scanning the page with interest. “You must understand, sir, that the untutored savages of Ireland, knowing nothing of pen and paper, had perforce to contrive some way of incising letters upon wood, stone, horn, and the like. They hit upon a system of scratching lines on the edges of these objects, as perpendicular or oblique, and grouped to represent the various letters. Thus it was said of many a deceased Irish hero, ‘They dug the grave and they raised the stone and they carved his name in Ogam.’”
“Why, this is a learned jewel-thief. Pray, Dr. Thomas,
translate these triangles and dashes.”
“Alack, sir, I cannot do it extempore. I must first have my books.”
“You, ma’am,” says Dr. Johnson to the volatile matron, “you are mighty familiar with Ogam, pray read it off for us.”
“O Lud, sir, not I, I am none of your antiquarians.”
“Why, so. Then I must extract the meaning for myself. ’Twill be no harder than the bi-literal cypher.”
But try as he would, the strange marks on the edges of the paper would not yield to the theory of the printer’s case. At last he leaned back.
“Let us begin afresh.”
“No, sir,” I begged, “let us have our tea. I am no Spartan boy, to labour while a fox is gnawing my vitals.”
“Spartan!” cried my companion. “You have earned your tea, Mr. Boswell. Do but answer me one question first, we may begin afresh and I think proceed in the right direction. Pray, what shape is this paper?”
“Sir, long and flat.”
Dr. Johnson dangled it by one end.
“No, sir, ’tis helical.”
Indeed as it dangled it coiled itself into a helix.
“Let us restore it to its proper shape,” said Dr. Johnson. “Pray, Mr. Boswell, fetch me the besom.”
I looked a question, but my sagacious friend said nothing further, and I went in search of the pretty housemaid and her besoms. After an interlude of knight-errantry, which taught me somewhat about women, but naught at all about our puzzle, I returned with such brooms as the house afforded.
I found my learned friend surrounded by stocks and staves, thick and thin, long and short. Around them, one after one, he was coiling the strange paper as a friseur curls hair about his finger. The results left him but ill satisfied.
“Could I but recall it to mind,” he muttered, “there is a thing missing, that is germane to this puzzle; but now ’tis gone from my memory.”
“Why, sir,” said I, “we are to question the one-legged sailorman.”
Thomas Godfrey (Ed) Page 21