CHAPTER XI.

Goldsmith was delighted to find that the Jessamy Bride seemed free from care. He had gone to Reynolds' in fear and trembling lest he should hear that she was unable to join the party; but now he found her in as merry a mood as he had ever known her to be in. He was seated by her side at dinner, and he was glad to find that there was upon her no trace of the mysterious mood that had spoiled his pleasure at the Pantheon.

She had, of course, heard of the troubles at the playhouse, and she told him that nothing would induce her ever to speak to Colman, though she said that she and Little Comedy, when they had first heard of the intention of the manager to withdraw the piece, had resolved to go together to the theatre and demand its immediate production on the finest scale possible.

“There's still great need for some one who will be able to influence Colman in that respect,” said Goldsmith. “Only to-day, when I ventured to talk of a fresh scene being painted, He told me that it was not his intention to proceed to such expense for a piece that would not be played for longer than a small portion of one evening.”

“The monster!” cried the girl. “I should like to talk to him as I feel about this. What, is he mad enough to expect that playgoers will tolerate his wretched old scenery in a new comedy? Oh, clearly he needs some one to be near him who will speak plainly to him and tell him how contemptible he is. Your friend Dr. Johnson should go to him. The occasion is one that demands the powers of a man who has a whole dictionary at his back—yes, Dr. Johnson should go to him and threaten that if he does not behave handsomely he will, in his next edition of the Dictionary, define a scoundrel as a playhouse manager who keeps an author in suspense for months, and then produces his comedy so ungenerously as to make its failure a certainty. But, no, your play will be the greater success on account of its having to overcome all the obstacles which Mr. Colman has placed in its way.”

“I know, dear child, that if it depended on your good will it would be the greatest success of the century,” said he.

“And so it will be—oh, it must be! Little Comedy and I will—oh, we shall insist on the playgoers liking it! We will sit in front of a box and lead all the applause, and we will, besides, keep stern eyes fixed upon any one who may have the bad taste to decline to follow us.”

“You are kindness itself, my dear; and meanwhile, if you would come to the remaining rehearsals, and spend all your spare time thinking out a suitable name for the play you would be conferring an additional favour upon an ill-treated author.”

“I will do both, and it will be strange if I do not succeed in at least one of the two enterprises—the first being the changing of the mistakes of a manager into the success of a night, and the second the changing of the 'Mistakes of a Night' into the success of a manager—ay, and of an author as well.”

“Admirably spoke!” cried the author. “I have a mind to let the name 'The Mistakes of a Night' stand, you have made such a pretty play upon it.”

“No, no; that is not the kind of play to fill the theatre,” said she. “Oh, do not be afraid; it will be very strange if between us we cannot hit upon a title that will deserve, if not a coronet, at least a wreath of laurel.” Sir Joshua, who was sitting at the head of the table, not far away, had put up his ear-trumpet between the courses, and caught a word or two of the girl's sentence.

“I presume that you are still discussing the great title question,” said he. “You need not do so. Have I not given you my assurance that 'The Belle's Stratagem' is the best name that the play could receive?”

“Nay, that title Dr. Goldsmith holds to be one of the 'mistakes of a Knight!'” said Mr. Bunbury in a low tone. He delighted in a pun, but did not like too many people to hear him make one.

“'The Belle's Stratagem' I hold to be a good enough title until we get a better,” said Goldsmith. “I have confidence in the ingenuity of Miss Horneck to discover the better one.”

“Nay, I protest if you do not take my title I shall go to the playhouse and damn the play,” said Reynolds. “I have given it its proper name, and if it appears in public under any other it will have earned the reprobation of all honest folk who detest an alias.”

“Then that name shall stand,” said Goldsmith. “I give you my word, Sir Joshua, I would rather see my play succeed under your title than have it damned under a title given to it by the next best man to you in England.”

“That is very well said, indeed,” remarked Sir Joshua. “It gives evidence of a certain generosity of feeling on your part which all should respect.”

Miss Kauffman, who sat at Sir Joshua's right, smiled a trifle vaguely, for she had not quite understood the drift of Goldsmith's phrase, but from the other end of the table there came quite an outburst of laughter. Garrick sat there with Mrs. Bunbury and Baretti, to whom he was telling an imaginary story of Ould Grouse in the gun-room.

Dr. Burney, who sat at the other side of the table, had ventured to question the likelihood of an audience's apprehending the humour of the story at which Diggory had only hinted. He wondered if the story should not be told for the benefit of the playgoers.

A gentleman whom Bunbury had brought to dinner—his name was Colonel Gwyn, and it was known that he was a great admirer of Mary Horneck—took up the question quite seriously.

“For my part,” he said, “I admit frankly that I have never heard the story of Grouse in the gun-room.”

“Is it possible, sir?” cried Garrick. “What, you mean to say that you are not familiar with the reply of Ould Grouse to the young woman who asked him how he found his way into the gun-room when the door was locked—that about every gun having a lock, and so forth?”

“No, sir,” cried Colonel Gwyn. “I had no idea that the story was a familiar one. It seems interesting, too.”

“Oh, 't is amazingly interesting,” said Garrick. “But you are an army man, Colonel Gwyn; you have heard it frequently told over the mess-table.”

“I protest, sir,” said Colonel Gwyn, “I know so little about it that I fancied Ould Grouse was the name of a dog—I have myself known of sporting dogs called Grouse.”

“Oh, Colonel, you surprise me,” cried Garrick. “Ould Grouse a dog! Pray do not hint so much to Dr. Goldsmith. He is a very sensitive man, and would feel greatly hurt by such a suggestion. I believe that Dr. Goldsmith was an intimate friend of Ould Grouse and felt his death severely.”

“Then he is dead?” said Gwyn. “That, sir, gives a melancholy interest to the narrative.”

“A particularly pathetic interest, sir,” said Garrick, shaking his head. “I was not among his intimates, Colonel Gwyn, but when I reflect that that dear simple-minded old soul is gone from us—that the gunroom door is now open, but that within there is silence—no sound of the dear old feet that were wont to patter and potter—you will pardon my emotion, madam”—He turned with streaming eyes to Miss Reynolds, who forthwith became sympathetically affected, her voice breaking as she endeavoured to assure Garrick that his emotion, so far from requiring an apology, did him honour. Bunbury, who was ready to roar, could not do so now without seeming to laugh at the feeling of his hostess, and his wife had too high an appreciation of comedy not to be able to keep her face perfectly grave, while a sob or two that he seemed quite unable to suppress came from the napkin which Garrick held up to his face. Baretti said something in Italian to Dr. Burney across the table, about the melancholy nature of the party, and then Garrick dropped his napkin, saying—

“'T is selfish to repine, and he himself—dear old soul!—would be the last to countenance a show of melancholy; for, as his remarks in the gun-room testify, Colonel Gwyn, he had a fine sense of humour. I fancy I see him, the broad smile lighting up his homely features, as he delivered that sly thrust at his questioner, for it is perfectly well known, Colonel, that so far as poaching was concerned the other man had no particular character in the neighbourhood.”

“Oh, Grouse was a poacher, then,” said the Colonel.

“Well, if the truth must be told—but no, the man is dead and gone now,” cried Garrick, “and it is more generous only to remember, as we all do, the nimbleness of his wit—the genial mirth which ran through the gun-room after that famous sally of his. It seems that honest homely fun is dying out in England; the country stands in need of an Ould Grouse or two just now, and let us hope that when the story of that quiet, yet thoroughly jovial, remark of his in the gun-room comes to be told in the comedy, there will be a revival of the good old days when men were not afraid to joke, sir, and——”

“But so far as I can gather from what Mrs. Bunbury, who heard the comedy read, has told me, the story of Ould Grouse in the gun-room is never actually narrated, but only hinted at,” said Gwyn.

“That makes little matter, sir,” said Garrick. “The untold story of Ould Grouse in the gun-room will be more heartily laughed at during the next year or two than the best story of which every detail is given.”

“At any rate, Colonel Gwyn,” said Mrs. Bunbury, “after the pains which Mr. Garrick has taken to acquaint you with the amplest particulars of the story you cannot in future profess to be unacquainted with it.” Colonel Gwyn looked puzzled.

“I protest, madam,” said he, “that up to the present—ah! I fear that the very familiarity of Mr. Garrick with the story has caused him to be led to take too much for granted. I do not question the humour, mind you—I fancy that I am as quick as most men to see a joke, but——”

This was too much for Bunbury and Burney. They both roared with laughter, which increased in volume as the puzzled look upon Colonel Gwyn's face was taken up by Garrick, as he glanced first at Burney and then at Little Comedy's husband. Poor Miss Reynolds, who could never quite make out what was going on around her in that strange household where she had been thrown by an ironical fate, looked gravely at the ultra-grave Garrick, and then smiled artificially at Dr. Burney with a view of assuring him that she understood perfectly how he came to be merry.

“Colonel Gwyn,” said Garrick, “these gentlemen seem to have their own reasons for merriment, but I think you and I can better discriminate when to laugh and when to refrain from laughter. And yet—ah, I perceive they are recalling the story of Ould Grouse in the gun-room, and that, sure enough, would convulse an Egyptian mummy or a statue of Nestor; and the funny part of the business is yet to come, for up to the present I don't believe that I told you that the man had actually been married for some years.”

He laughed so heartily that Colonel Gwyn could not refrain from joining in, though his laughter was a good deal less hearty than that of any of the others who had enjoyed Garrick's whimsical fun.

When the men were left alone at the table, there was some little embarrassment owing to the deficiency of glass, for Sir Joshua, who was hospitable to a fault, keeping an open house and dining his friends every evening, could never be persuaded to replace the glass which chanced to be broken. Garrick made an excuse of the shortness of port-glasses at his end of the table to move up beside Goldsmith, whom he cheered by telling him that he had already given a lesson to Woodward regarding the speaking of the prologue which he, Garrick, had written for the comedy. He said he believed Woodward would repeat the lines very effectively. When Goldsmith mentioned that Colman declined to have a single scene painted for the production, both Sir Joshua and Garrick were indignant.

“You would have done well to leave the piece in my hands, Noll,” said the latter, alluding to the circumstance of Goldsmith's having sent the play to him on Colman's first refusal to produce it.

“Ah, Davy, my friend,” Goldsmith replied, “I feel more at my ease in reflecting that in another week I shall know the worst—or the best. If the play had remained with you I should feel like a condemned criminal for the next year or two.”

In the drawing-room that evening Garrick and Goldsmith got up the entertainment, which was possibly the most diverting one ever seen in a room.

Goldsmith sat on Garrick's knees with a table-cloth drawn over his head and body, leaving his arms only exposed. Garrick then began reciting long sentimental soliloquies from certain plays, which Goldsmith was supposed to illustrate by his gestures. The form of the entertainment has survived, and sometimes by chance it becomes humourous. But with Garrick repeating the lines and thrilling his audience by his marvellous change of expression as no audience has since been thrilled, and with Goldsmith burlesquing with inappropriately extravagant and wholly amusing gestures the passionate deliverances, it can easily be believed that Sir Joshua's guests were convulsed.

After some time of this division of labour, the position of the two playmates was reversed. It was Garrick who sat on Goldsmith's knees and did the gesticulating, while the poet attempted to deliver his lines after the manner of the player. The effect was even more ludicrous than that of the previous combination; and then, in the middle of an affecting passage from Addison's “Cato,” Goldsmith began to sing the song which he had been compelled to omit from the part of Miss Hardcastle, owing to Mrs. Bulkley's not being a singer. Of course Garrick's gestures during the delivery of the song were marvellously ingenious, and an additional element of attraction was introduced by Dr. Burney, who hastily seated himself at the pianoforte and interwove a medley accompaniment, introducing all the airs then popular, but without prejudice to the harmonies of the accompaniment.

Reynolds stood by the side of his friend, Miss Kauffman, and when this marvellous fooling had come to an end, except for the extra diversion caused by Garrick's declining to leave Goldsmith's knees—he begged the lady to favour the company with an Italian song which she was accustomed to sing to the accompaniment of a guitar. But Miss Angelica shook her head.

“Pray add your entreaties to mine, Miss Horneck,” said Sir Joshua to the Jessamy Bride. “Entreat our Angel of Art to give us the pleasure of hearing her sing.”

Miss Horneck rose, and made an elaborate curtsey before the smiling Angelica.

“Oh, Madame Angel, live forever!” she cried. “Will your Majesty condescend to let us hear your angelic voice? You have already deigned to captivate our souls by the exercise of one art; will you now stoop to conquer our savage hearts by the exercise of another?”

A sudden cry startled the company, and at the same instant Garrick was thrown on his hands and knees on the floor by the act of Goldsmith's springing to his feet.

“By the Lord, I've got it!” shouted Goldsmith. “The Jessamy Bride has given it to me, as I knew she would—the title of my comedy—she has just said it: 'She Stoops to Conquer.'”