I ventured to enquire where in his opinion the sacred document had got to.
“Why, Bozzy,” replied he, “some Shakespeare-maniac has got it, you may depend upon it, or as it might be, some old-paper maniac. Some scavenging antiquarian has laid hold of it and gloats over it in secret.”
“I cry your pardon,” said Dr. Percy, suddenly appearing at our door. He was white and uneasy still. In his hand he carried a parcel.
“Pray, Dr. Johnson, do you not have my parcel that I brought from Mr. Ararat’s?”
“I, Dr. Percy? I have my own parcel.” Dr. Johnson indicated it where it lay still wrapped on the table.
Percy seized it, and scrutinized the wrappings narrowly.
“You are deceived, Dr. Johnson. This parcel is mine. Here is yours, which I retained in errour for my own. I fear I have disarranged it in opening. Pray forgive me. I see you have opened mine more neatly.”
“’Tis as I had it of you,” replied Dr. Johnson.
“You have not opened it!” cried Percy. “Well, Dr. Johnson, now we each have our own again, and no harm’s done, eh? We lovers of good paper have done a shrewd day’s bargaining, have we not, ha ha ha!”
“I will wager mine was the better bargain,” said Dr. Johnson good-humouredly. “Come, open up, let us see.”
“No, no, Dr. Johnson, I must be off,” and Percy whipped through the door before either of us could say a word.
“Now,” remarked Dr. Johnson, “’tis seen that Peyton was well advised to name our chamber ‘Much Ado about Nothing’.”
The rain continued in a dreary stream, so that boards had to be laid over the kennel to transport the ladies dry-shod into the amphitheatre; but for all that, the great masquerade that night was surely the finest entertainment of the kind ever witnessed in Britain. I was sorry that Dr. Johnson elected to miss it. There were many rich, elegant, and curious dresses, many beautiful women, and some characters well supported. Three ladies personated Macbeth’s three witches with devastating effect, while a person dressed as the devil gave inexpressible offence.
I own, however, that ’twas my own attire that excited the most remark. Appearing in the character of an armed Corsican chief, I wore a short, dark-coloured coat of coarse cloth, scarlet waistcoat and breeches, and black spatterdashes, and a cap of black cloth, bearing on its front, embroidered in gold letters, VIVA LA LIBERTA, and on its side a blue feather and cockade. I also wore a cartridge-pouch, into which was stuck a stiletto, and on my left side a pistol. A musket was slung across my shoulder, and my black hair, unpowdered, hung plaited down my neck, ending in a knot of blue ribbands. In my right hand I carried a long vine staff, with a bird curiously carved at the long curving upper end, emblematical of the sweet bard of Avon. In this character of a Corsican chief I delivered a poetical address on the united subjects of Corsica and the Stratford Jubilee.
I cannot forbear to rehearse the affecting peroration:
“But let me plead for LIBERTY distrest,
And warm for her each sympathetick Breast:
Amongst the splendid Honours which you bear,
To save a Sister Island! be your Care:
With generous Ardour make US also FREE;
And give to CORSICA, a NOBLE JUBILEE.”
As I came to an applauded close, I heard a resonant voice at my elbow.
“Pray, Bozzy,” demanded Dr. Johnson, peering at me with disfavour, “what is the device on your coat? The head of a blackamoor upon a charger, garnished with watercress?”
“That, sir,” I replied stiffly, “is the crest of Corsica, a Moor’s head surrounded by branches of laurel. But what brings you from your bed, whither you were bound when I left you?”
“Sir,” replied Dr. Johnson, “somebody in Stratford is in possession of the missing manuscript of Mr. Ararat. Here I have them all gathered under one roof, and all out of character, or into another character, which is just as revealing. I am here to observe. Let us retire into this corner and watch how they go on. To him who will see with his eyes, all secrets are open.”
“Tooth pick cases, needle cases, punch ladles, tobacco stoppers, inkstands, nutmeg graters, and all sorts of boxes, made out of the famous mulberry tree,” chanted a musical voice behind us. We turned to behold the very figure of the man with the tray. His brilliant eyes twinkled behind his mask.
“Goods from the mulberry tree,” he chanted, “made out of old chairs and stools and stained according, tooth pick cases, needle cases, punch ladles—”
A blast from a trumpet cut him off. Beside him stood a second mask, garbed “like Rumour painted full of tongues,” impersonating Fame with trumpet and scroll.
“Pray, sir,” said Dr. Johnson, entering into the spirit of the occasion, “let us glimpse your scroll, whether our names be not inscribed thereon.”
The mask withheld the scroll, and spoke in a husky voice:
“Nay, sir, my scroll is blank.”
“Why, sir, then you are the prince of cynics. What, not one name? Not Corsica Boswell? Not Garrick? Not Shakespeare? Sir, were I to betray this to the Corporation, you should stand in the pillory.”
“Therefore I shall not reveal myself—even to Dr. Johnson—” replied the mask in his husky voice. He would have slipped away, when one of those spasmodic movements which cause my venerable friend so much distress hurled to the ground both trumpet and scroll. In a contest of courtesy, Fame retrieved the trumpet and my venerable friend the scroll.
“You say true,” remarked the last-named sadly, re-rolling the scroll, “on the roster of Fame, my name is not inscribed.”
He restored the scroll with a bow, and Fame made off with the mulberry-wood vendor.
“I interest myself much in the strange personages of this assemblage,” remarked my philosophical friend. “Alack, there’s a greater guy than you, Corsica Boswell, for he’s come out without his breeches.”
I recognized with surprize the fiery mop and blank face of young Ararat, whom I had last seen that morning weeping for the lost manuscript. He was robed in white linen, and carried scrip and claymore. He wore no mask, but his face was daubed with blue.
“’Tis Anthony,’ said I, “he personates Caractacus, the British hero. Sure he trusts in vain if he thinks to conceal his identity behind a little blue paint.”
“To the man with eyes, the heaviest mask is no concealment,” replied Dr. Johnson; “sure you smoaked our friends with the scroll and the mulberry wood in spite of their valences.”
“Not I, trust me. Fame’s husky voice was no less strange to me than the wizened figure of the pedlar.”
“The husky voice, the bent figure, were assumed for disguise,” replied Dr. Johnson, “but Percy’s long nose was plain for all to see, and Malone’s mellifluous tones were no less apparent. They thought to quiz me; but I shall quiz them tomorrow.”
I was watching young Ararat, with his father the center of a sycophantic group of masks who made lions of them. Young Anthony was as impassive as ever, but his face was as red as his father’s. Lady Macbeth plucked at his elbow; the three Graces fawned upon him; in the press about him. I saw the trumpet of Fame and the tray of the mulberry pedlar.
“A springald Caractacus,” remarked Dr. Johnson, following my gaze, “how long, think you, could he live in equal combat if his life depended on that dull-edged claymore?”
“Yet see,” I commented severely, “how the ladies flatter him, whose only claim on their kindness amounts to this, that through no merit of his own he found a dusty bundle of papers in his father’s shed.”
“While those who can compose, ay and declaim, verses upon liberty,” supplied Dr. Johnson slyly, “stand neglected save by a musty old scholar.”
“Nay, sir,” I protested; but Dr. Johnson cut me off:
“Why, sir, we are all impostors here. Fame with an empty scroll, mulberry wood cut from old chairs and stools! Sir, I have canvassed the abilities of the company, and I find that but one sailor out of six can dance a horn-pipe, and but one
more box his compass. Not one conjuror can inform me whether he could tell my fortune better by chiromancy or catoptromancy. None of four farmers knows how a score of runts sells now; and the harlequin is as stiff as a poker. So your Caractacus is an impostor among impostors, and we must not ask too much of him.”
I looked at the press around the finder and the owner of the missing manuscript, buzzing like bees with talk and laughter. There was a sudden silence, broken by a bellow from old Ararat. The buzzing began again on a higher note, and the whole swarm bore down on our corner, old Ararat in the lead. He brandished in his hand an open paper.
Wordlessly he extended the paper to my friend. Peering over his shoulder, I read with him:
“Sir,
The manuscript of Caractacus is safe, and I have a mind to profit from it in spite of your teeth. Lay £100 in the font at the church, and you shall hear further.
Look to it; for if the value of the manuscript is nil, and profits me nothing, as God is my judge I will destroy it. I do not steal in sport.
I am,
Sir,
Your obliged humble servant,
Ignotus”
“The scoundrel!” cried old Ararat. “Where am I to find £100?”
“This is more of your antiquarianism,” I remarked, “like a knight of old, the miscreant holds his captive to ransom.”
Dr. Johnson turned the letter in his hands, and held it against the lights of the great chandelier. ’Twas writ in a fair hand on ordinary laid paper, and sealed with yellow wax; but instead of using a seal, the unknown writer had set his thumb in the soft wax.
“Why,” says he, “the thief has signed himself with hand and seal indeed. Now were there but some way to match this seal to the thumb that made it, we should lay the robber by the heels and have back the manuscript that Shakespeare wrote.”
“Alack, sir,” I replied, “there is no way.”
“Nevertheless, let us try,” said Dr. Johnson sturdily. “Pray, Mr. Malone, set your thumb in this seal.”
“I?” said the mulberry-wood pedlar, drawing back.
“I will,” said I, and set my thumb in the waxen matrix. It fitted perfectly. The eyes of the maskers turned to me, and I felt my ears burning. Dr. Johnson held out the seal to old Ararat, who with a stormy mutter of impatience tried to crowd his huge thumb into the impression. ’Twas far too broad.
Dr. Johnson tried in turn the thumb of each masker. The ladies’ thumbs were too slender, Malone’s too long; but there were many in the group that fitted. Dr. Johnson shook his head.
“This is the fallacy of the undistributed middle term” said he. “Some other means must be found than gross measurement, to fit a thumb to the print it makes. Pray, how came you by this letter?”
“’Twas tossed at my feet by someone in the press,” replied old Ararat. “Come, Dr. Johnson, advise me, how am I to come by £100 to buy back my lost manuscript?”
“A subscription!” cried Fame. “The price is moderate for so precious a prize. I myself will undertake to raise the sum for you.”
So it was concerted. Dr. Johnson enjoined secrecy upon the maskers, and Fame with his visor off, revealed as Dr. Percy indeed, bustled off to open the subscription books.
We lay late the next day in the “Much Ado about Nothing” chamber. Dr. Johnson was given over to indolence, and declined to say what he had learned at the masquerade, or whether he thought that the mysterious communication held out any hope that the missing manuscript might be recovered.
The rain continuing, the pageant was dispensed with. We whiled away the hours comfortably at the Red Lion, while Percy and Malone spent a damp day with their subscription books. Representing the collection merely as “for the Ararats,” they found the sum of £100 not easy to be amassed. Toward evening, however, they returned to the Red Lion with £87 in silver and copper, and Garrick’s promise to make up the sum when the play’s takings should be counted.
Dr. Johnson spurned at the idea of buying back mere paper and faded ink. In his roaring voice he tossed and gored Dr. Percy for his magpie love of old documents, adverting especially to Percy’s recent publication of “The Household Book of the Earls of Northumberland.”
“Pray, sir,” he demanded with scorn, “of what conceivable utility to mankind can the ‘Household Book’ be supposed to be? The world now knows that a dead-and-gone Percy had beef to the value of twelve pence on a Michaelmas in 1512. Trust me, ’twill set no beef on the table of any living Percy.”
The young Irish lawyer came to the unfortunate clergyman’s defense, and fared no better. Johnson was in high good spirits as we dined off a veal pye and a piece of good beef (which the living Percy relished well).
We then repaired to the amphitheatre, where Percy had concerted to meet the Ararats with Caractacus’s ransom.
Old Ararat would have none of Dr. Johnson’s advice, to ignore Ignotus’s letter. He was hot to conclude the business, and would hear of no other plan, than to deposit the £100 in the font as soon as the play should be over and the takings counted.
“Then, sir,” said Dr. Johnson in disgust, “at least let us entrap Ignotus, and make him Gnotus. Mr. Boswell and I will watch by the font and take him as he comes for his ill-gotten gains.”
“We must stand watch and watch,” cried Percy. “Malone and I will relieve you.”
“Nay, let me,” cried old Ararat.
“So be it,” assented Dr. Johnson; and we repaired to our respective boxes to see the play.
We shared a box with Percy and Malone. Dr. Johnson grunted to himself when David Garrick made his first entrance on the battlements, wearing white linen kilts and bedaubed with blue paint. In spite of this antiquarianism, I found myself moved deeply by the noble eloquence, the aweful elevation of soul, with which Garrick spoke the words of this play so strangely preserved for our generation. I was most affected by the solemn soliloquy which concluded the first act:
“O sovereign death,
Thou hast for thy domain this world immense:
Churchyards and charnel-houses are thy haunts,
And hospitals thy sumptuous palaces;
And when thou would’st be merry, thou dost chuse
The gaudy chamber of a dying King.
O! Then thou dost ope wide thy honey jaw
And with rude laughter and fantastick tricks,
Thou clapp’st thy rattling fingers to thy sides:
And when this solemn mockery is o’er,
With icy hand thou tak’st him by the feet,
And upward so, till thou dost reach the heart,
And wrap him in the cloak of lasting night.”
As the act ended, from the stage box the Ararats, father and son, rose to share the plaudits of the huzzaing crowd.
“Davy Garrick,” remarked Dr. Johnson in my ear, “has surpassed himself; and King is inimitable as the Fool.”
The second act opened with another scene of King’s.
“Alack,” cries the lovelorn Concairn,
“Alack, I will write verses of my love,
They shall be hung on every tree …”
King turned a cart-wheel, ending with a resounding smack on the rump.
“Say rather,” he cried, “they shall be used in every jakes, for by’r lakin, such fardels does thy prentice hand compose, they are as caviare to the mob. I can but compliment thee thus, they do go to the bottom of the matter.”
The pit roared.
“Ha, what?” exclaimed Dr. Johnson. “Bozzy, Bozzy, where’s my hat?”
“Your hat, sir? Why, the play is not half over.”
Dr. Johnson fumbled around in the dark.
“No matter. Do you stay and see it through. Where’s this hat of mine?”
“Here, sir.” I handed it to him.
“Whither do you go, sir?” enquired Malone eagerly.
“To do what must be done. Fool that I was, not to see—but ’tis not yet too late.” Dr. Johnson lumbered off as the pit began to cry for silence.
/> We were on pins and needles in our box, but we sat through till Davy Garrick had blessed the land of the Britons and died a noble death, and we joined in the plaudits that rewarded the great actor and the great playwright and the finders of the manuscript. The Ararats were the cynosure of all eyes. It was long till we brought them away from their admirers and down to the church. Percy carried the £100 in a knitted purse. The rain had ceased, and a pale round moon contended with the clouds.
The solemn silence oppressed me as we pushed back the creaking door and entered, and my heart leaped to my mouth when a shadowy figure moved in the silent church. ’Twas Dr. Johnson. He had wrapped himself in his greatcoat, and armed himself with a dark lanthorn. I could smell it, but it showed no gleam.
Without ceremony old Ararat dropped the heavy purse in the empty font and carried young Anthony off for home, promising to return and relieve our watch. I envied Percy and Malone as they, too, departed, with the Red Lion’s mulled ale in their minds. They promised to return in an hour’s time. Dr. Johnson quenched the lanthorn, and we were left alone in the dark.
I own I liked it little, alone in the dark with the bones of dead men under our feet, and a desperate thief who knows how near? There was no sound. Dead Shakespeare lay under our feet, his effigy stared into the dark above our heads.
We sat in the shadow, back from the font. I fixed my eyes on its pale gleam, whereon the cloudy moon dropped a fitful light through the open door.
I will swear I saw nothing, no shadow on the font, no stealing figure by the open door; I heard nothing, I neither nodded nor closed my eyes. Dr. Johnson fought sleep by my side. The hour was gone, and he was beginning to snore, when the light of a link came toward us, and Percy and Malone came in with the Ararats. Johnson awoke with a snort.
“For this relief much thanks,” he muttered. “What, all four of you?”
“Ay,” returned Percy, extinguishing the link, “for the Ararats are as eager as we to stand the next watch.”
“Let it be so,” replied Dr. Johnson, approaching the font, “we will but verify it, that the money is here, and passes from our keeping into yours.”
The Detections of Dr. Sam Johnson Page 16