“Sir,” she said to her husband, “I’ll submit even to this frightful degradation, if it be necessary for your safety and that of these gentlemen, but I know you’ll spare it me if you can.”
“I’ll ride out with you openly, madam,” he answered, “before you shall be forced to it.”
“It appears to me,” said I, “though I speak with some diffidence, that we might hope to put in practice successfully a device mentioned by several ingenious authors. Cleopatra, on being denied Cæsar’s presence, caused herself, we are told, to be conveyed into his apartments concealed in a bale of carpets. Without for a moment resembling Mrs Fraser to the too-notorious queen, I think it might be possible to conceal her, when we quit the city to-morrow, among those wadded quilts we use for mattresses.”
“Now, doctor, you talk like a man of sense!” cried Mr Watts. “Your device spares the lady’s punctilio, and avoids endangering her spouse. Are you prepared, madam, to submit to a certain measure of inconvenience for the sake of freedom?”
“Indeed, sir, I am,” she replied.
“Why then, Mr Fraser and Mirza Shah shall carry out the affair. But remember, sir, your lady is Mirza Shah’s care on the journey, and not yours. If you was perpetually hovering about the baggage, the simplest Syke could not fail to discover your secret. Doctor, we owe you many thanks.”
Pray, madam, don’t take it ill in me thus to conclude my epistle with my own praises. Mrs Hurstwood won’t misunderstand me, I’m convinced. The having served her friend, however slightly, will commend to her kindness her most obedient, humble servant,
Jno. Dacre.
(The preceding letter, as well as those written by Mr Fraser, was transcribed, as is afterwards explained, by Mrs Fraser, and sent with her own to her friend Miss Turnor, by whom they were preserved. The curious fragment which follows may be found in No. 17 of the thirty large MS. volumes containing Dr Dacre’s miscellaneous remains. As no transcript of it has been discovered among the Johnson papers, it is probable that the letter was never sent.)
From the Rev. Dr Dacre to Saml. Johnson, Esq., M.A.