Goldsmith for the next few days felt very ill at ease. He had a consciousness of having wasted a good deal of valuable time waiting upon Mrs. Abington and discussing with her the possibility of accomplishing the purpose which he had at heart; for he could not but perceive how shallow was the scheme which she had devised for the undoing of Mary Horneck's enemy. He felt that it would, after all, have been better for him to place himself in the hands of the fencing-master whom Baretti had promised to find out for him, and to do his best to run the scoundrel through the body, than to waste his time listening to the crude scheme concocted by Mrs. Abington, in close imitation of some third-class playwright.
He felt, however, that he had committed himself to the actress and her scheme. It would be impossible for him to draw back after agreeing to join her at supper on the Thursday night. But this fact did not prevent his exercising his imagination with a view to find out some new plan for obtaining possession of the letters. Thursday came, however, without seeing him any further advanced in this direction than he had been when he had first gone to the actress, and he began to feel that hopelessness which takes the form of hoping for the intervention of some accident to effect what ingenuity has failed to accomplish-Mrs. Abington had suggested the possibility of such an accident taking place—in fact, she seemed to rely rather upon the possibility of such an occurrence than upon the ingenuity of her own scheme; and Oliver could not but think that she was right in this respect. He had a considerable experience of life and its vicissitudes, and he knew that when destiny was in a jesting mood the most judicious and cunningly devised scheme may be overturned by an accident apparently no less trivial than the raising of a hand, the fluttering of a piece of lace, or the cry of a baby.
He had known of a horse's casting a shoe preventing a runaway match and a vast amount of consequent misery, and he had heard of a shower of rain causing a confirmed woman hater to take shelter in a doorway, where he met a young woman who changed—for a time—all his ideas of the sex. As he recalled these and other freaks of fate, he could not but feel that Mrs. Abington was fully justified in her confidence in accident as a factor in all human problems. But he was quite aware that hoping for an accident is only another form of despair.
In the course of the day appointed by Mrs. Abington for her supper he met Baretti, and reminded him of the promise he had made to find an Italian fencing master and send him to Brick Court.
“What!” cried Baretti. “Have you another affair on your hands in addition to that in which you have already been engaged? Psha! sir. You do not need to be a swordsman in order to flog a bookseller.”
“I do not look forward to fighting booksellers,” said Goldsmith. “They have stepped between me and starvation more than once.”
“Would any one of them have taken that step unless he was pretty certain to make money by his philanthropy?” asked Baretti in his usual cynical way.
“I cannot say,” replied Goldsmith. “I don't think that I can lay claim to the mortifying reflection that I have enriched any bookseller. At any rate, I do not mean ever to beat another.”
“'Tis, then, a critic whom you mean to attack? If you have made up your mind to kill a critic, I shall make it a point to find you the best swordsman in Europe,” said Baretti.
“Do so, my friend,” said Goldsmith; “and when I succeed in killing a critic, you shall have the first and second fingers of his right hand as a memento.”
“I shall look for them—yes, in five years, for it will certainly take that time to make you expert with a sword,” said the Italian. “And, meantime, you may yourself be cut to pieces by even so indifferent a fighter as Kenrick.”
“In such a case I promise to bequeath to you whatever bones of mine you may take a fancy to have.”
“And I shall regard them with great veneration, being the relics of a martyr—a man who did not fear to fight with dragons and other unclean beasts. You may look for a visit from a skilful countryman of mine within a week; only let me pray of you to be guided by his advice. If he should say that it is wiser for you to beware the entrance to a quarrel, as your poet has it, you will do well to accept his advice. I do not want a poet's bones for my reliquary, though from all that I can hear one of our friends would have no objection to a limb or two.”
“And who may that friend be?”
“You should be able to guess, sir. What! have you not been negotiating with the booksellers for a life of Dr. Johnson?”
“Not I, sir. But, if I have been doing so, what then?”
“What then? Why, then you may count upon the eternal enmity of the little Scotchman whom you once described not as a cur but only a bur. Sir, Boswell robbed of his Johnson would be worse than—than——”
“A lioness robbed of her whelps?”
“Well, better say a she-bear robbed of her cubs, only that Johnson is the bear and Boswell the cub. Boswell has been going about saying that you had boasted to him of your intention to become Johnson's biographer; and the best of the matter is that Johnson has entered with great spirit into the jest and has kept his poor Bossy on thistles—reminiscent of his native land—ever since.”
Goldsmith laughed, and told Baretti how he had occasion to get rid of Boswell, and had done so by pretending that he meant to write a life of Johnson. Baretti laughed and went on to describe how, on the previous evening, Garrick had drawn on Boswell until the latter had imitated all the animals in the farmyard, while narrating, for the thousandth time, his first appearance in the pit of Drury Lane. Boswell had felt quite flattered, Baretti said, when Garrick, making a judicial speech, which every one present except Boswell perceived to be a fine piece of comedy, said he felt constrained to reverse the judgment of the man in the pit who had shouted: “Stick to the coo, mon!” On the whole, Garrick said, he thought that, while Boswell's imitation of the cow was most admirable in many respects, yet for naturalness it was his opinion—whatever it might be worth—that the voice of the ass was that which Boswell was most successful in attempting.
Goldsmith knew that even Garrick's broadest buffoonery was on occasions accepted by Boswell with all seriousness, and he had no hesitation in believing Baretti's account of the party on the previous evening.
He went to Mrs. Abington's room at the theatre early in the night to inquire if she had made any change in her plans respecting the supper, and he found that the lady had come to think as poorly of the scheme which she had invented as he did. She had even abandoned her idea of inducing the man to confess, when in a state of intoxication, where he was in the habit of keeping the letters.
“These fellows are sometimes desperately suspicious when in their cups,” said she; “and I fear that at the first hint of our purpose he may become dumb, no matter how boldly he may have been talking previously. If he suspects that you have a desire to obtain the letters, you may say farewell to the chance of worming anything out of him regarding them.”
“What then is to be gained by our supping with him?” said Goldsmith.
“Why, you are brought into contact with him,” she replied. “You will then be in a position, if you cultivate a friendship with him, to take him unawares upon some occasion, and so effect your purpose. Great? heavens, sir! one cannot expect to take a man by storm, so to speak—one cannot hope to meet a clever scoundrel for half an hour-in the evening, and then walk away with all his secrets. You may have to be with this fellow every day for a month or two before you get a chance of putting the letters into your pocket.”
“I'll hope for better luck than that,” said Oliver.
“Oh, with good luck one can accomplish anything,” said she. “But good luck is just one of the things that cannot be arranged for even by the cleverest people.”
“That is where men are at a disadvantage in striving with destiny,” said Goldsmith. “But I think that any man who succeeds in having Mrs. Abington as his ally must be regarded as the most fortunate of his sex.”
“Ah, sir, wait for another month before you compliment me,” said she.
“Madam,” said he, “I am not complimenting you, but myself. I will take your advice and reserve my compliments to you for—well, no, not a month; if I can put them off for a week I shall feel that I have done very well.”
As he made his bow and left her, he could not help feeling more strongly that he had greatly overrated the advantages to be derived from an alliance with Mrs. Abington when his object was to get the better of an adroit scoundrel. He had heard—nay, he had written—of the wiles of women, and yet the first time that he had an opportunity of testing a woman's wiles he found that he had been far too generous in his estimate of their value.
It was with no little trepidation that he went to the Shakespeare tavern at supper time and inquired for Mrs. Abington. He had a roll of manuscript in his hand, according to agreement, and he desired the waiter to inform the lady that he would not keep her for long. He was very fluent up to this point; but he was uncertain how he would behave when he found himself face to face with the man who had made the life of Mary Horneck miserable. He wondered if he would be able to restrain his impulse to fly at the scoundrel's throat.
When, however, the waiter returned with a message from Mrs. Abington that she would see Dr. Goldsmith in the supper room, and he ascended the stairs to that apartment, he felt quite at his ease. He had nerved himself to play a part, and he was convinced that the rôle was not beyond his powers.
Mrs. Abington, at the moment of his entrance, was lying back in her chair laughing, apparently at a story which was being told to her by hervis-à-vis, for he was leaning across the table, with his elbow resting upon it and one expressive finger upraised to give emphasis to the points of his narrative.
When Goldsmith appeared, the actress nodded to him familiarly, pleasantly, but did not allow her attention to be diverted from the story which Captain Jackson was telling to her. Goldsmith paused with his fingers still on the handle of the door. He knew that the most inopportune entrance that a man can make upon another is when the other is in the act of telling a story to an appreciative audience—say, a beautiful actress in a gown that allows her neck and shoulders to be seen to the greatest advantage and does not interfere with the ebb and flow of that roseate tide, with its gracious ripples and delicate wimplings, rising and falling between the porcelain of her throat and the curve of the ivory of her shoulders.
The man did not think it worth his while to turn around in recognition of Goldsmith's entrance; he finished his story and received Mrs. Abington's tribute of a laugh as a matter of course. Then he turned his head round as the visitor ventured to take a step or two toward the table, bowing profusely—rather too profusely for the part he was playing, the artistic perception of the actress told her.
“Ha, my little author!” cried the man at the table with the swagger of a patron.
“You are true to the tradition of the craft of scribblers—the best time for putting in an appearance is when supper has just been served.”
“Ah, sir,” said Goldsmith, “we poor devils are forced to wait upon the convenience of our betters.”
“Strike me dumb, sir, if 'tis not a pity you do not await their convenience in an ante-room—ay, or the kitchen. I have heard that the scribe and the cook usually become the best of friends. You poets write best of broken hearts when you are sustained by broken victuals.”
“For shame, Captain!” cried Mrs Abington. “Dr. Goldsmith is a man as well as a poet. He has broken heads before now.”
Captain Jackson laughed heartily at so quaint an idea, throwing himself back in his chair and pointing a contemptuous thumb at Oliver, who had advanced to the side of the actress, assuming the deprecatory smile of the bookseller's hack. He played the part very indifferently, the lady perceived.
“Faith, my dear,” laughed the Captain, “I would fain believe that he is a terrible person for a poet, for, by the Lord, he nearly had his head broke by me on the first night that you went to the Pantheon; and I swear that I never crack a skull unless it be that of a person who is accustomed to spread terror around.”
“Some poets' skulls, sir, are not so easily cracked,” said Mrs. Abington.
“Nay, my dear madam,” cried hervis-à-vis, “you must pardon me for saying that I do not think you express your meaning with any great exactness. I take it that you mean, madam, that on the well known kitchen principle that cracked objects last longer than others, a poet's pate, being cracked originally, survives the assaults that would overcome a sound head.”
“I meant nothing like that, Captain,” said Mrs. Abington. Then she turned to Goldsmith, who stood by, fingering his roll of manuscript. “Come, Dr. Goldsmith,” she cried, “seat yourself by me, and partake of supper. I vow that I will not even glance at that act of your new play which I perceive you have brought to me, until we have supped.”
“Nay, madam,” stuttered Goldsmith; “I have already had my humble meal; still——”
He glanced from the dishes on the table to Captain Jackson, who gave a hoarse laugh, crying—
“Ha, I wondered if the traditions of the trade were about to be violated by our most admirable Doctor. I thought it likely that he would allow himself to be persuaded. But I swear that he has no regard for the romance which he preaches, or else he would not form the third at a party. Has he never heard that the third in a party is the inevitable kill-joy?”
“You wrong my friend Dr. Goldsmith, Captain,” said the actress in smiling remonstrance that seemed to beg of him to take an indulgent view of the poet's weakness. “You wrong him, sir. Dr. Goldsmith is a man of parts. He is a wit as well as a poet, and he will not stay very long; will you, Dr. Goldsmith?”
She acted the part so well that but for the side glance which she cast at him, Goldsmith might have believed her to be in earnest. For his own part he was acting to perfection the rôle of the hack author who was patronised till he found himself in the gutter. He could only smile in a sickly way as he laid down his hat beside a chair over which Jackson's cloak was flung, and placed in it the roll of manuscript, preparatory to seating himself.
“Madam, I am your servant,” he murmured; “Sir, I am your most obedient to command. I feel the honour of being permitted to sup in such distinguished company.”
“And so you should, sir,” cried Captain Jackson as the waiter bustled about, laying a fresh plate and glass, “so you should. Your grand patrons, my little friend, though they may make a pretence of saving you from slaughter by taking your quarrel on their shoulders, are not likely to feed you at their own table. Lord, how that piece of antiquity, General Oglethorpe, swag gered across the porch at the Pantheon when I had half a mind to chastise you for your clumsiness in almost knocking me over! May I die, sir, if I wasn't at the brink of teaching the General a lesson which he would have remembered to his dying hour—his dying hour—that is to say, for exactly four minutes after I had drawn upon him.”
“Ah, Dr. Goldsmith is fortunate in his friends,” said Mrs. Abington. “But I hope that in future, Captain, he may reckon on your sword being drawn on his behalf, and not turned against him and his friends.”
“If you are his friend, my dear Mrs. Abington, he may count upon me, I swear,” cried the Captain bowing over the table.
“Good,” she said. “And so I call upon you to drink to his health—a bumper, sir, a bumper!”
The Captain showed no reluctance to pay the suggested compliment. With an air of joviality he filled his large glass up to the brim and drained it with a good-humoured, half-patronising motion in the direction of Goldsmith.
“Hang him!” he cried, when he had wiped his lips, “I bear Goldsmith no malice for his clumsiness in the porch of the Pantheon. 'Sdeath, madam, shall the man who led a company of his Majesty's regulars in charge after charge upon the American rebels, refuse to drink to the health of a little man who tinkles out his rhymes as the man at the raree show does his bells? Strike me blind, deaf and dumb, if I am not magnanimous to my heart's core. I'll drink his health again if you challenge me.”
“Nay, Captain,” said the lady, “I'll be magnanimous, too, and refrain from challenging you. I sadly fear that you have been drinking too many healths during the day, sir.”
“What mean you by that, madam?” he cried. “Do you suggest that I cannot carry my liquor with the best men at White's? If you were a man, and you gave a hint in that direction, by the Lord, it would be the last that you would have a chance of offering.”
“Nay, nay, sir! I meant not that,” said the actress hastily. “I will prove to you that I meant it not by challenging you to drink to Dr. Goldsmith's new comedy.”
“Now you are very much my dear,” said Jackson, half-emptying the brandy decanter into his glass and adding only a thimbleful of water. “Yes, your confidence in me wipes out the previous affront. 'Sblood, madam, shall it be said that Dick Jackson, whose name made the American rebels—curse 'em!—turn as green as their own coats—shall it be said that Dick Jackson, of whom the rebel Colonel—Washington his name is—George Washington”—he had considerable difficulty over the name—“is accustomed to say to this day, 'Give me a hundred men—not men, but lions, like that devil Dick Jackson, and I'll sweep his Majesty's forces into the Potomac'—shall it be said that—that—what the devil was I about to say—shall it be said?—never mind—here's to the health of Colonel Washington!”
“Nay, sir, we cannot drink to one of the King's enemies,” said Mrs. Abington, rising. “'Twere scandalous, indeed, to do so in this place; and, sir, you still wear the King's uniform.”
“The devil take the King's uniform!” shouted the man. “The devils of rebels are taking a good many coats of that uniform, and let me tell you, madam, that—nay, you must not leave the table until the toast is drank——” Mrs. Abington having risen, had walked across the room and seated herself on the chair over which Captain Jackson had flung his cloak.
“Hold, sir,” cried Goldsmith, dropping his knife and fork with a clatter upon his plate that made the other man give a little jump. “Hold, sir, I perceive that you are on the side of freedom, and I would feel honoured by your permission to drink the toast that you propose. Here's success to the cause that will triumph in America.” Jackson, who was standing at the table with his glass in his hand, stared at him with the smile of a half-intoxicated man. He had just enough intelligence remaining to make him aware that there was something ambiguous in Goldsmith's toast.
“It sounds all right,” he muttered as if he were trying to convince himself that his suspicions of ambiguity were groundless. “It sounds all right, and yet, strike me dizzy! if it wouldn't work both ways! Ha, my little poet,” he continued. “I'm glad to see that you are a man. Drink, sir—drink to the success of the cause in America.” Goldsmith got upon his feet and raised his glass—it contained only a light wine.
“Success to it!” he cried, and he watched Captain Jackson drain his third tumbler of brandy.
“Hark ye, my little poet!” whispered the latter very huskily, lurching across the table, and failing to notice that his hostess had not returned to her place. “Hark ye, sir! Cornwallis thought himself a general of generals. He thought when he courtmartialled me and turned me out of the regiment, sending me back to England in a foul hulk from Boston port, that he had got rid of me. He'll find out that he was mistaken, sir, and that one of these days——Mum's the word, mind you! If you open your lips to any human being about this, I'll cut you to pieces. I'll flay you alive! Washington is no better than Cornwallis, let me tell you. What message did he send me when he heard that I was ready to blow Cornwallis's brains out and march my company across the Potomac? I ask you, sir, man to man—though a poet isn't quite a man—but that's my generosity. Said Washy—Washy—Wishy—Washy—— Washington: 'Cornwallis's brains have been such valuable allies to the colonists, Colonel Washington would regard as his enemy any man who would make the attempt to curtail their capacity for blundering.' That's the message I got from Washington, curse him! But the Colonel isn't everybody. Mark me, my friend—whatever your name is—I've got letters—letters——”
“Yes, yes, you have letters—where?” cried Goldsmith, in the confidential whisper that the other had assumed.
The man who was leaning across the table stared at him hazily, and then across his face there came the cunning look of the more than half-intoxicated. He straightened himself as well as he could in his chair, and then swayed limply backward and forward, laughing.
“Letters—oh, yes—plenty of letters—but where?—where?—that's my own matter—a secret,” he murmured in vague tones. “The government would give a guinea or two for my letters—one of them came from Mount Vernon itself, Mr.—whatever your name maybe—and if you went to Mr. Secretary and said to him, 'Mr. Secretary'”—he pronounced the word “Secrary”—“'I know that Dick Jackson is a rebel,' and Mr. Secretary says, 'Where are the letters to prove it?' where would you be, my clever friend? No, sir, my brains are not like Cornwallis's, drunk or sober. Hallo, where's the lady?”
He seemed suddenly to recollect where he was. He straightened himself as well as he could, and looked sleepily across the room.
“I'm here,” cried Mrs. Abington, leaving the chair, across the back of which Jackson's coat was thrown. “I am here, sir; but I protest I shall not take my place at the table again while treason is in the air.”
“Treason, madam? Who talks of treason?” cried the man with a lurch forward and a wave of the hand. “Madam, I'm shocked—quite shocked! I wear the King's coat, though that cloak is my own—my own, and all that it contains—all that——”
His voice died away in a drunken fashion as he stared across the room at his cloak. Goldsmith saw an expression of suspicion come over his face; he saw him straighten himself and walk with an affectation of steadiness that only emphasised his intoxicated lurches, to the chair where the cloak lay. He saw him lift up the cloak and run his hand down the lining until he came to a pocket. With eager eyes he saw him extract from the pocket a leathern wallet, and with a sigh of relief slip it furtively into the bosom of his long waistcoat, where, apparently, there was another packet.
Goldsmith glanced toward Mrs. Abington. She was sitting leaning over her chair with a finger on her lips, and the same look of mischief that Sir Joshua Reynolds transferred to his picture of her as “Miss Prue.” She gave a glance of smiling intelligence at Oliver, as Jackson laughed coarsely, saying huskily—
“A handkerchief—I thought I had left my handkerchief in the pocket of my cloak, and 'tis as well to make sure—that's my motto. And now, my charmer, you will see that I'm not a man to dally with treason, for I'll challenge you in a bumper to the King's most excellent Majesty. Fill up your glass, madam; fill up yours, too, Mr.—Mr. Killjoy, we'll call you, for what the devil made you show your ugly face here the fiend only knows. Mrs. Baddeley and I are the best of good friends. Isn't that the truth, sweet Mrs. Baddeley? Come, drink to my toast—whatever it may be—or, by the Lord, I'll run you through the vitals!”
Goldsmith hastened to pass the man the decanter with whatever brandy remained in it, and in another instant the decanter was empty and the man's glass was full. Goldsmith was on his feet with uplifted glass before Jackson had managed to raise himself, by the aid of a heavy hand on the table, into a standing attitude, murmuring—
“Drink, sir! drink to my lovely friend there, the voluptuous Mrs. Baddeley. My dear Mrs. Baddeley, I have the honour to welcome you to my table, and to drink to your health, dear madam.”
He swallowed the contents of the tumbler—his fourth since he had entered the room—and the next instant he had fallen in a heap into his chair, drenched by the contents of Mrs. Abington's glass.
0315
“That is how I accept your toast of Mrs. Baddeley, sir,” she cried, standing at the head of the table with the dripping glass still in her hand. “You drunken sot! not to be able to distinguish between me and Sophia Baddeley! I can stand the insult no longer. Take yourself out of my room, sir!”
She gave the broad ribbon of the bell such a pull as nearly brought it down. Goldsmith having started up, stood with amazement on his face watching her, while the other man also stared at her through his drunken stupour, his jaw fallen.
Not a word was spoken until the waiter entered the room.
“Call a hackney coach immediately for that gentleman,” said the actress, pointing to the man who alone remained—for the best of reasons—seated.
“A coach? Certainly, madam,” said the waiter, withdrawing with a bow.
“Dr. Goldsmith,” resumed Mrs. Abington, “may I beg of you to have the goodness to see that person to his lodgings and to pay the cost of the hackney-coach? He is not entitled to that consideration, but I have a wish to treat him more generously than he deserves. His address is Whetstone Park, I think we may assume; and so I leave you, sir.”
* She walked from the room with her chin in the air, both of the men watching her with such surprise as prevented either of them from uttering a word. It was only when she had gone that it occurred to Goldsmith that she was acting her part admirably—that she had set herself to give him an opportunity of obtaining possession of the wallet which she, as well as he, had seen Jackson transfer from the pocket of his cloak to that of his waistcoat. Surely he should have no great difficulty in extracting the bundle from the man's pocket when in the coach.
“They're full of their whimsies, these wenches,” were the first words spoken, with a free wave of an arm, by the man who had failed in his repeated attempts to lift himself out of his chair. “What did I say?—what did I do to cause that spitfire to behave like that? I feel hurt, sir, more deeply hurt than I can express, at her behaviour. What's her name—I'm not sure if she was Mrs. Abington or Mrs. Baddeley? Anyhow, she insulted me grossly—me, sir—me, an officer who has charged his Majesty's rebels in the plantations of Virginia, where the Potomac flows down to the sea. But they're all alike. I could tell you a few stories about them, sir, that would open your eyes, for I have been their darling always.” Here he began to sing a tavern song in a loud but husky tone, for the brandy had done its work very effectively, and he had now reached what might be called—somewhat paradoxically—the high-water mark of intoxication. He was still singing when the waiter re-entered the room to announce that a hackney carriage was waiting at the door of the tavern.
At the announcement the drunken man made a grab for a decanter and flung it at the waiter's head. It missed that mark, however, and crashed among the plates which were still on the table, and in a moment the landlord and a couple of his barmen were in the room and on each side of Jackson. He made a poor show of resistance when they pinioned his arms and pushed him down the stairs and lifted him into the hackney-coach. The landlord and his assistants were accustomed to deal with promptitude with such persons, and they had shut the door of the coach before Goldsmith reached the street.
“Hold on, sir,” he cried, “I am accompanying that gentleman to his lodging.”
“Nay, Doctor,” whispered the landlord, who was a friend of his, “the fellow is a brawler—he will involve you in a quarrel before you reach the Strand.”
“Nevertheless, I will go, my friend,” said Oliver. “The lady has laid it upon me as a duty, and I must obey her at all hazards.”
He got into the coach, and shouted out the address to the driver.
The instant he had seated himself he found to his amazement that the man beside him was fast asleep. To look at him lying in a heap on the cushions one might have fancied that he had been sleeping for hours rather than minutes, so composed was he. Even the jolting of the starting coach made no impression upon him.
Goldsmith perceived that the moment for which he had been longing had arrived. He felt that if he meant to get the letters into his possession he must act at once.
He passed his hand over the man's waistcoat, and had no difficulty in detecting the exact whereabouts of the packet which he coveted. All he had to do was to unbutton the waistcoat, thrust his hand into the pocket, and then leave the coach while it was still in motion.
The moment that he touched the first button, however, the man shifted his position, and awoke, putting his hand, as if mechanically, to his breast to feel that the wallet was still there. Then he straightened himself in some measure and began to mumble, apparently being quite unaware of the fact that some one was seated beside him.
“Dear madam, you do me great honour,” he said, and then gave a little hiccupping laugh. “Great honour, I swear; but if you were to offer me all the guineas in the treasure chest of the regiment I would not give you the plan of the fort. No, madam, I am a man of honour, and I hold the documents for Colonel Washington. Oh, the fools that girls are to put pen to paper! But if she was a fool she did not write the letters to a fool. Oh, no, no! I would accept no price for them—no price whatever except your own fair self. Come to me, my charmer, at sunset, and they shall be yours; yes, with a hundred guineas, or I print them. Oh, Ned, my lad, there's no honester way of living than by selling a wench her own letters. No, no; Ned, I'll not leave 'em behind me in the drawer, in case of accidents. I'll carry 'em about with me in case of accidents, for I know how sharp you are, dear Ned; and so when I had 'em in the pocket of my cloak I thought it as well to transfer 'em—in case of accidents, Ned—to my waistcoat, sir. Ay, they're here! here, my friend! and here they'll stay till Colonel Washington hands me over his dollars for them.”
Then he slapped his breast, and laughed the horrible laugh of a drunken man whose hallucination is that he is the shrewdest fellow alive.
Goldsmith caught every word of his mumblings, and from the way he referred to the letters, came to the conclusion that the scoundrel had not only tried to levy blackmail on Mary Horneck, but had been endeavouring to sell the secrets of the King's forces to the American rebels. Goldsmith had, however, no doubt that the letters which he was desirous of getting into his hands were those which the man had within his waistcoat. His belief in this direction did not, however, assist him to devise a plan for transferring the letters from the place where they reposed to his own pocket.
The coach jolted over the uneven roads on its way to the notorious Whetstone Park, but all the jolting failed to prevent the operation of the brandy which the man had drank, for once again he fell asleep, his fingers remaining between the buttons of his waistcoat, so that it would be quite impossible for even the most adroit pickpocket, which Goldsmith could not claim to be, to open the garment.
He felt the vexation of the moment very keenly. The thought that the packet which he coveted was only a few inches from his hand, and yet that it was as unattainable as though it were at the summit of Mont Blanc, was maddening; but he felt that he would be foolish to make any more attempts to effect his purpose. The man would be certain to awake, and Goldsmith knew that, intoxicated though he was, he was strong enough to cope with three men of his (Goldsmith's) physique.
Gregory's Court, which led into Whetstone Park, was too narrow to admit so broad a vehicle as a hackney-coach, so the driver pulled up at the entrance in Holborn near the New Turnstile, just under an alehouse lamp. Goldsmith was wondering if his obligation to Mrs. Abington's guest did not end here, when the light of the lamp showed the man to be wide awake, and he really seemed comparatively sober. It was only when he spoke that he showed himself, by the huskiness of his voice, to be very far from sober.
“Good Lord!” he cried, “how do I come to be here? Who the devil may you be, sirrah? Oh, I remember! You're the poet. She insulted me—grossly insulted me—turned me out of the tavern. And you insulted me, too, you rascal, coming with me in my coach, as if I was drunk, and needed you to look after me. Get out, you scoundrel, or I'll crack your skull for you. Can't you see that this is Gregory's Court?”
Goldsmith eyed the ruffian for a moment. He was debating if it might not be better to spring upon him, and make at least a straightforward attempt to obtain the wallet. The result of his moment's consideration of the question was to cause him to turn away from the fellow and open the door. He was in the act of telling the driver that he would take the coach on to the Temple, when Jackson stepped out, shaking the vehicle on its leathern straps, and staggered a few yards in the direction of the turnstile. At the same instant a man hastily emerged from the entrance to the court, almost coming in collision with Jackson.
“You cursed, clumsy lout!” shouted the latter, swinging, half-way round as the man passed. In a second the stranger stopped, and faced the other.
“You low ruffian!” he said. “You cheated me last night, and left me to sleep in the fields; but my money came to me to-day, and I've been waiting for you. Take that, you scoundrel—and that—and that——”
He struck Jackson a blow to right and left, and then one straight on the forehead, which felled him to the ground. He gave the man a kick when he fell, and then turned about and ran, for the watchman was coming up the street, and half a dozen of the passers-by gave an alarm.
Goldsmith shouted out, “Follow him—follow the murderer!” pointing wildly in the direction taken by the stranger.
In another instant he was leaning over the prostrate man, and making a pretence to feel his heart. He tore open his waistcoat. Putting in his hand, he quickly abstracted the wallet, and bending right over the body in order to put his hand to the man's chest, he, with much more adroitness than was necessary—for outside the sickly gleam of the lamp all the street was in darkness—slipped the wallet into his other hand and then under his coat.
A few people had by this time been drawn to the spot by the alarm which had been given, and some inquired if the man were dead, and if he had been run through with a sword.
“It was a knock-down blow,” said Goldsmith, still leaning over the prostrate man; “and being a doctor, I can honestly say that no great harm has been done. The fellow is as drunk as if he had been soused in a beer barrel. A dash of water in his face will go far to bring about his recovery. Ah, he is recovering already.”
He had scarcely spoken before he felt himself thrown violently back, almost knocking down two of the bystanders, for the man had risen to a sitting posture, asking him, with an oath, as he flung him back, what he meant by choking him.
A roar of laughter came from the people in the street as Goldsmith picked up his hat and straightened his sword, saying—
“Gentlemen, I think that a man who is strong enough to treat his physician in that way has small need of his services. I thought the fellow might be seriously hurt, but I have changed my mind on that point recently; and so good-night. Souse him copiously with water should he relapse. By a casual savour of him I should say that he is not used to water.”
He re-entered the coach and told the driver to proceed to the Temple, and as rapidly as possible, for he was afraid that the man, on completely recovering from the effects of the blow that had stunned him, would miss his wallet and endeavour to overtake the coach. He was greatly relieved when he reached the lodge of his friend Ginger, the head porter, and he paid the driver with a liberality that called down upon him a torrent of thanks.
As he went up the stairs to his chambers he could scarcely refrain from cheering. In his hand he carried the leathern wallet, and he had no doubt that it contained the letters which he hoped to place in the hands of his dear Jessamy Bride, who, he felt, had alone understood him—had alone trusted him with the discharge of a knightly task.
He closed his oaken outer door and forced up the wick of the lamp in his room. With trembling fingers by the light of its rays he unclasped the wallet and extracted its contents. He devoured the pages with his eyes, and then both wallet and papers fell from his hands. He dropped into a chair with an exclamation of wonder and dismay. The papers which he had taken from the wallet were those which, following the instructions of Mrs. Abington, he had brought with him to the tavern, pretending that they were the act of the comedy which he had to read to the actress!
He remained for a long time in the chair into which he had fallen. He was utterly stupefied. Apart from the shock of his disappointment, the occurrence was so mysterious as to deprive him of the power of thought. He could only gaze blankly down at the empty wallet and the papers, covered with his own handwriting, which he had picked up from his own desk before starting for the tavern.
What did it all mean? How on earth had those papers found their way into the wallet?
Those were the questions which he had to face, but for which, after an hour's consideration, he failed to find an answer.
He recollected distinctly having seen the expression of suspicion come over the man's face when he saw Mrs. Abington sitting on the chair over which his cloak was hanging; and when she had returned to the table, Jackson had staggered to the cloak, and running his hand down the lining until he had found the pocket, furtively took from it the wallet, which he transferred to the pocket on the inner side of his waistcoat. He had had no time—at least, so Goldsmith thought—to put the sham act of the play into the wallet; and yet he felt that the man must have done so unseen by the others in the room, or how could the papers ever have been in the wallet?
Great heavens! The man must only have been shamming intoxication the greater part of the night! He must have had so wide an experience of the craft of men and the wiles of women as caused him to live in a condition of constant suspicion of both men and women. He had clearly suspected Mrs. Abington's invitation to supper, and had amused himself at the expense of the actress and her other guest. He had led them both on, and had fooled them to the top of his bent, just when they were fancying that they were entrapping him.
Goldsmith felt that, indeed, he at least had been a fool, and, as usual, he had attained the summit of his foolishness just when he fancied he was showing himself to be especially astute. He had chuckled over his shrewdness in placing himself in the hands of a woman to the intent that he might defeat the ends of the scoundrel who threatened Mary Horneck's happiness, but now it was Jackson who was chuckling-Jackson, who had doubtless been watching with amused interest the childish attempts made by Mrs. Abington to entrap him.
How glibly she had talked of entrapping him! She had even gone the length of quoting Shakespeare; she was one of those people who fancy that when they have quoted Shakespeare they have said the last word on any subject. But when the time came for her to cease talking and begin to act, she had failed. She had proved to him that he had been a fool to place himself in her hands, hoping she would be able to help him.
He laughed bitterly at his own folly. The consciousness of having failed would have been bitter enough by itself, but now to it was added the consciousness of having been laughed at by the man of whom he was trying to get the better.
What was there now left for him to do? Nothing except to go to Mary, and tell her that she had been wrong in entrusting her cause to him. She should have entrusted it to Colonel Gwyn, or some man who would have been ready to help her and capable of helping her—some man with a knowledge of men—some man of resource, not one who was a mere weaver of fictions, who was incapable of dealing with men except on paper. Nothing was left for him but to tell her this, and to see Colonel Gwyn achieve success where he had achieved only the most miserable of failures.
He felt that he was as foolish as a man who had built for himself a house of cards, and had hoped to dwell in it happily for the rest of his life, whereas the fabric had not survived the breath of the first breeze that had swept down upon it.
He felt that, after the example which he had just had of the diabolical cunning of the man with whom he had been contesting, it would be worse than useless for him to hope to be of any help to Mary Horneck. He had already wasted more than a week of valuable time. He could, at least, prevent any more being wasted by going to Mary and telling her how great a mistake she had made in being over-generous to him. She should never have made such a friend of him. Dr. Johnson had been right when he said that he, Oliver Goldsmith, had taken advantage of the gracious generosity of the girl and her family. He felt that it was his vanity that had led him to undertake on Mary's behalf a task for which he was utterly unsuited; and only the smallest consolation was allowed to him in the reflection that his awakening had come before it was too late. He had not been led away to confess to Mary all that was in his heart. She had been saved the unhappiness which that confession would bring to a nature so full of feeling as hers. And he had been saved the mortification of the thought that he had caused her pain.
The dawn was embroidering with its floss the early foliage of the trees of the Temple before he went to his bed-room, and another hour had passed before he fell asleep.
He did not awake until the clock had chimed the hour of ten, and he found that his man had already brought to the table at his bedside the letters which had come for him in the morning. He turned them over with but a languid amount of interest. There was a letter from Griffiths, the bookseller; another from Garrick, relative to the play which Goldsmith had promised him; a third, a fourth and a fifth were from men who begged the loan of varying sums for varying periods. The sixth was apparently, from its shape and bulk, a manuscript—one of the many which were submitted to him by men who called him their brother-poet. He turned it over, and perceived that it had not come through the post. That fact convinced him that it was a manuscript, most probably an epic poem, or perhaps a tragedy in verse, which the writer might think he could get accepted at Drury Lane by reason of his friendship with Garrick.
He let this parcel lie on the table until he had dressed, and only when at the point of sitting down to breakfast did he break the seals. The instant he had done so he gave a cry of surprise, for he found that the parcel contained a number of letters addressed in Mary Horneck's handwriting to a certain Captain Jackson at a house in the Devonshire village where she had been staying the previous summer.
On the topmost letter there was a scrap of paper, bearing a scrawl from Mrs. Abing ton—the spelling as well as the writing was hers—
“'Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.' These are a few feathers pluckt from our hawke, hoping that they will be a feather in the capp of dear Dr. Goldsmith.”