A Series of Plays in which it is attempted to delineate The Stronger Passions of the Mind, Volume Two/The Election Act 1
THE ELECTION.
ACT I.
SCENE I. The open marketplace of a small country town, a croud of men, women, and children seen on the back ground; Margery and Countryman surrounded with several others are discovered talking on the front of the stage.
Margery.
PATRON! pot-man an' you will. As long as he holds the brown jug to their heads, they'll run after him an' he were the devil. Oh! that I should live to see the heir of the ancient family of Baltimore set aside in his own borough by a nasty, paltry, nobody-knows-who of an upstart! What right has he, forsooth! to set himself up for to oppose a noble gentleman? I remember his own aunt very well; a poor, industrious, pains-taking woman, with scarcely a pair of shoes to her feet.
Countryman. Well, well, and what does that signify, Goody? He has covered more bare feet with new shoes since he came among us, than all the noble families in the country, let his aunt wear what shoes she would: ay, and his bounty has filled more empty bellies too, though his granum might dine on a turnip, for aught I know or care about the matter.
Mar. Don't tell me about his riches, and his bounty, and what not: will all that ever make him any thing else than the son of John Freeman the weaver? I wonder to hear you talk such nonsense, Arthur Wilkins; you that can read books and understand reason: such a fellow as that is not good enough to stand cap in hand before Mr. Baltimore.
(The rabble come forward huzzaing, and making a great noise, and take different sides of the stage.)
Croud on F. side.) Huzza! huzza! Freeman for ever!
Mar. Yes, yes, to be sure: Freeman for ever! fat Sam the butcher for ever! black Dick the tinker for ever! any body is good enough for you, filthy rapscallions!
1st Mob on F. side.) Ay, scold away, old Margery! Freeman for ever! say I. Down with your proud, pennyless gentry! Freeman for ever!
Mar. Down with your rich would-be-gentry upstarts! Baltimore for ever! (to mob on her side) Why don't you call out, oafs?
(The mob on her side call out Baltimore, and the mob on the other, Freeman; but the F. side gets the better.)
What, do you give it up so? you poor, spiritless nincumpoops! I would roar till I bursted first, before I would give it up so to such a low-liv'd, beggarly rabble.
2d Mob on F. side.) They lack beef and porter, Margery. That makes fellows loud and hearty, I trow. Coats of arms and old pictures wont fill a body's stomach. Come over to Freeman-hall, and we'll shew you good cheer, woman. Freeman for ever!
Mar. Ha' done with your , bawling, blackimoor! what care I for your good cheer? none of your porter nor your beef for me, truly!
2d Mob on F. side.) No, Goody! mayhap, as you have been amongst the gentry all your life, you may prefer a cup of nice sage tea, or a little nice rue-water, or a leg of a roasted snipe, or a bit of a nice tripe dumplin.
Mar. Close your fool's mouth, oaf! or I'll cram a dumplin into it that you wont like the chewing of. Mr. Baltimore's father kept a table like a prince, when your poor beggarly candidate's father had scarcely a potatoe in his pot. But knaves like you were not admitted within his gates to see it, indeed. Better men than you, or your master either, were not good enough to take away his dirty trenchers and the meanest creature about his house was as well dress'd, and in as good order, as if it had been the king's court, and every day in the year had been a Sunday.
2d Mob on F. side.) So they were. Goody; I remember it very well; the very sucking pigs ran about his yard with full bottom'd wigs on, and the grey goose waddled through the dirt with a fine flounced petticoat.
Mar. Hold your fool's tongue, do! no upstart parliament-men for me! Baltimore for ever!
Croud on B. side call out) Baltimore for ever!
1st Mob on B. side.) Sour paste and tangled bobbins for weavers!
1st Mob on F. side.) Empty purses and tatter'd lace for gentlemen!
Old woman on B. side.) We'll have no strange new-comers for our member: Baltimore for me!
Old woman on F. side.) Good broth is better than good blood, say I: Freeman for me!
Little Boy on B. side.) Weaver, weaver, flap, flap!
Grin o'er your shuttle, and rap, rap!
(acting the motion of a weaver.)
Little Boy on F. side.) Gentleman, gentleman, proud of a word! Stand on your tip-toes, and bow to my lord! (acting a gentleman.)
Mar. Go, you little devil's imp! who teaches you to blaspheme your betters? (She gives the boy a box on the ear: the mob on the other side take his part: a great uproar and confusion, and exeunt both sides fighting.)
SCENE II. A walk leading through a grove to Baltimore's house, and close by it. Enter Mrs. Baltimore, as if just alighted from her carriage, followed by her Maid and Peter, carrying a box and portfolio and other things.
Mrs. Balt. But what does all this distant noise and huzzaing mean? the whole town is in commotion.
Pet. It is nothing as I know of, Ma'am, but my Master and Mr. Freeman's voters fighting with one another at the alehouse doors, to shew their goodwill to the candidates, as all true hearty fellows do at an election,
Mrs. B. Yes, our member is dead suddenly; I had forgot. But who are the candidates?
Pet. My master, Madam, and Mr. Freeman.
Mrs. B. Gentlemen supported by them, you mean?
Pet. No Ma'am, I mean their own two selves, for their own two selves. But I beg pardon for naming such a man as Freeman on the same day with a gentleman like my Master.
Mrs. B. Mr. Freeman, if you please, Peter; and never let me hear you name him with disrespect in my presence. Carry those things into the house; (to the maid) and you too, Blond; I see Mr. Baltimore.(Exeunt servants.
Enter Baltimore.
Balt. My dear Isabella, you are welcome home; how are you after your journey?
Mrs. B. Perfectly well; and very glad, even after so short an absence, to find myself at home again. But what is going on here? I have heard strange news just now: Peter tells me you are a candidate for the Borough, and Mr. Freeman is your rival. It is some blunder of his own, I suppose?
Balt. No, it is not.
Mrs. B. (stepping back in surprise, and holding up her hands.) And are you actually throwing away the last stake of your ruin'd fortune on a contested election?
Balt. I will sell every acre of land in my possession, rather than see that man sit in parliament for the borough of Westown.
Mrs. B. And why should not he as well as another? The declining fortunes of your family have long made you give up every idea of the kind for yourself: of what consequence, then, can it possibly be to you? I know very well, my dear Baltimore, it is not a pleasant thing for the representative of an old family declined in fortune, to see a rich obscure stranger buy up all the land on every side, and set himself down like a petty prince in his neighbourhood. But if he had not done it, some other most likely would; and what should we have gain'd by the change?
Balt. O! any other than himself I could have suffer'd.
Mrs. B. You amaze me. He has some disagreeable follies I confess, but he is friendly and liberal.
Balt. Yes, yes, he affects patronage and public spirit: he is ostentatious to an absurdity.
Mrs. B. Well then, don't disturb yourself about it. If he is so, people will only laugh at him.
Balt. O! hang them, but they wont laugh! I have seen the day, when, if a man made himself ridiculous, the world would laugh at him. But now, by heaven, every thing that is mean, disgusting, and absurd, pleases them but so much the better! If they would but laugh at him, I should be content.
Mrs. B. My dear Baltimore! curb this strange fancy that has taken such a strong hold of your mind, and be reasonable.
Balt. I can be reasonable enough. I can see as well as you do that it is nonsense to disturb myself about this man; and when he is absent I can resolve to endure him: but whenever I see him again, there is something in his full satisfied face; in the tones of his voice; ay, in the very gait and shape of his legs, that is insufferable to me.
Mrs. B. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Balt. What makes you laugh, Madam?
Mrs. B. Indeed I have more cause to cry! yet I could not help laughing when you talk'd of his gait and his legs: for people, you must know, have taken it into their heads that there is a resemblance between you and him; I have, myself, in twilight, sometimes mistaken the one for the other.
Balt. It must have been in midnight, I think. People have taken it into their heads! blind idiots! I could kick my own shins if I thought they had the smallest resemblance to his.
Mrs. B. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Balt. And this is matter of amusement for you, Ma'am? I abhor laughing?
Mrs. B. Pray, pray forgive me! This is both ludicrous and distressing. I knew that you disliked this man from the first day he settled in your neighbourhood, and that, during two years acquaintance, your aversion has been daily encreasing; but I had no idea of the extravagant height to which it has now arrived.
Balt. Would I had sold every foot of my lands, and settled in the lone wilds of America, 'ere this man came, to be the swoln possessor of my fore-fathers lands; their last remaining son, now cramp'd and elbow'd round, in one small corner of their once wide and extensive domains! Oh! I shall never forget what I felt, when, with that familiar and disgusting affability, he first held out to me his damned palm, and hail'd me as a neighbour, (striding up and down the stage.) Ay, by my soul, he pretends to be affable!
Mrs. B. You feel those things too keenly.
Balt. A stock or a stone would feel it. He has opposed me in every contest, from the election of a member of parliament down to the chasing of a parish clerk; and yet, damn him! he will never give me a fair occasion of quarrelling with him, for then I should be happier. (striding up and down again.) Hang it! it was not worth a pinch of snuff to me, whether the high road went on one side of my field or the other; but only that I saw he was resolved to oppose me in it, and I would have died rather than have yielded to him.
Mrs. B. Are you sure, Baltimore, that your own behaviour has not provoked him to that opposition?
Balt. (striding up and down as he speaks.) He has extended his insolent liberalities over the whole country round. The very bantlings lisp his name as they sit on their little stools in the sun.
Mrs. B. My dear friend!
Balt. He has built two new towers to his house; and it rears up its castled head amongst the woods, as if its master were the lord and chieftain of the whole surrounding county.
Mrs. B. And has this power to offend you?
Balt. No, no, let him pile up his house to the clouds, if he will! I can bear all this patiently: it is his indelicate and nauseous civility that drives me mad. He goggles and he smiles; he draws back his full watry lip like a toad, (making a mouth of disgust.) Then he spreads out his nail-bitten fingers as he speaks—hah!
Mrs. B. And what great harm does all this do you?
Balt. What harm! it makes my very flesh creep, like the wrigglings of a horse-leech or a maggot. It is an abomination beyond all endurance!
Mrs. B. The strange fancies you take in regard to everything this poor man does, are to me astonishing.
Balt. (Stopping-short, and looking fixedly on her.) Are to you astonishing! I doubt it not: I was a fool to expect that a wife so many years younger than myself would have any sympathy with my feelings.
Mrs. B. Baltimore! you wrong me, unkindly.—But his daughter comes: she will over-hear us.
Balt. What brings that affected fool here? She is always coming here. It is an excrescence from the toad's back: the sight of her is an offence to me.
(Enter Charlotte, with an affected air of great delicacy.) Char. How do you do, my dear Mrs. Baltimore? I am quite charm'd to see you. (curtseys affectedly to Balt.)
Mrs. B. I thank you, my dear, you are early abroad this morning.
Char. Oh! I am almost kill'd with fatigue; but I saw your carriage at the gate, and I could not deny myself the pleasure of enquiring how you do. The heat overcomes one so much in this weather; it is enough to make one faint: it is really horrid. (speaking in a faint soft voice, and fanning herself affectedly.)
Mrs. B. It does not affect me.
Char. No! O you are not so robust I am sure.
(Enter a little country girl, trailing a great piece of muslin after her.)
Girl. to Char. Here, Miss; here is a piece of your petticoat that you left on the bushes, as you scrambled over the hedge to look at the bird's nest yonder.
Char. (in confusion.) O la! the briars will catch hold of one so, as one goes along. Give it me, give it me. (takes the muslin, and crams it hastily into her pocket.) This weather makes one go by the side of ditches, and amongst bushes, and any where for a little shade.
Balt. Tadpoles love ditches in all weathers.
(Exit.
Char. (looking after him strangely for a moment or two, and then skipping lightly up to Mrs. B. and taking her kindly by the hand.) Thank heaven he's gone! I stand more in awe of him, than my mother and my governess, and all the whole pack of masters that ever came about the house. If there was not a certain look about him now and then, that puts me in mind of my father, I should take a down-right aversion to him. O! I beg pardon! I mean I should not like him very well, even tho' he is your husband. But was it not provoking in that little chit to follow me with those rags in her hand?
Mrs. B. I suppose we shall have a glove or a garter coming after you bye-and-bye.
Char. O they may bring what they please now!—Well, How d'ye do? how d'ye do? how d'ye do? (taking Mrs. B. by the hand, and skipping round her joyfully.)
Mrs. B. Very well, my good little Charlotte;
Char. I am delighted to see you return'd. Ah, don't you remember how good you were to me, when I was a little urchin at Mrs. Highman's school? and how I used to stand by your side when you dress'd, and count over the pins in your pin-cushion?
Mrs. B. I remember it very well.
Char. But how comes it that we meet so seldom? you never come to see us now, and I dare not come to you so often as I wish, for Mr. Baltimore looks at me so sternly. Let papa and him contend with one another as they please; what have we to do with their plaguy election? O if we were but together! we could work and talk to one another all day long, and it would be so pleasant!
Mrs. B. Indeed, my dear Charlotte, I wish I could have you frequently with me; but I hope you have many pleasant employments at home.
Char. Ah, but I have not tho'. I am tired to death of music, and drawing, and Italian, and German, and geography, and astronomy, and washes to make my hands white. (shaking her head piteously.) But what does it signify fretting? I know I must be an accomplish'd woman; I know it very well.
Mrs. B. (smiling) Don't you like to be occupied?
Char. O yes: it is not that I am a lazy girl. If they would plague me no more with my masters, but give me some plain pocket-handkerchiefs to hem, I would sit upon the foot-stool all day, and sing like a linnet.
Mrs. B. My dear girl, and so there must be things in this mix'd world to keep even thy careless breast from being as blithe as a linnet. But you were going home: I'll walk a little way with you.
Char. I thank you (looking off the stage.) Is not that Charles at a distance? I dare say, now, he has been a fishing, or looking after coveys of partridges, or loit'ring about the horse dealers. I hope he did not see me get over the hedge tho'.
Mrs. B. Alas poor Charles! I wish he had more useful occupations. It is a sad thing for a young man to be hanging about idle.
Char. So my papa says: and, do you know, I believe he had it in his head to get some appointment for him when this election came in the way. Shall I put him in mind of it?
Mrs. B. No no, my dear Charlotte, that must not be. Shall we walk?
Char. (scampering off.) Stop a little, pray. (Exit.
Mrs. B. Where is she gone to now?
Char. (returning with something in her lap.) Only to fetch my two black kittens. I bought them from a boy, as I went along, to save them from drowning. I could not curtsey to Mr. Baltimore, you know, with kittens in my lap, so I dropp'd them slyly under the hedge as I enter'd; for this fellow with the white spot on his nose makes a noise like a little devil. (They go arm in arm to the side of the stage to go out, when Mrs. B. looking behind her, stops short.)
Mrs. B. No, I must not walk farther with you just now: I see Mr. Truebridge coming this way, and I wish to speak to him. Good morning, my dear Charlotte. (Exit Charlotte.
Enter Truebridge.
You are hurrying away very fast; I did not know you were here.
True. I have been in the library writing a letter, which I ought to have done before I left my own house. I am going from home for a few days, and I came to see Baltimore before I set out.
Mrs. B. You are always going from home. I am very sorry you are going at this time, when your presence here might have been so useful. You might have persuaded Baltimore, perhaps, to give up this foolish contest with so rich a competitor as Freeman.
True. No, it is better, perhaps, to let them fight it out. We should only have separated them, like two game cocks, who are sure to be at it again, beak and spurs, with more fury than ever.
Re-enter Baltimore.
Balt. to True. You have forgot your letter. A pleasant journey to you! (gives him a letter.)
True. Farewell for a few days! I hope to learn on my return, that you have carried on this contest with temper and liberality, since you will engage in it.
Balt. Why you know, Truebridge, I am compell'd to engage in it.
True. O certainly, and by very weighty reasons too! A man may injure in a hundred different ways and provoke no hostile return; but, when added to some petty offences, he varies his voice and gesture, wears his coat and doublet, nay, picks his very teeth in a manner that is irksome to us, what mortal is there, either pagan or believer, that can refrain from setting himself in array against him?
Balt. Well well! give yourself no trouble. I'll keep my temper; I'll do everything calmly and reasonably.
True. Do so; I sha'n't return, probably, till the poll is closed. I have told you my reasons for taking no part in the business; and let the new member be who he will, I am resolved to shake hands cordially with him. It won't do for one who has honours and pensions in view, to quarrel with great men. Good bye to you!—Madam, all success to your wishes.(Exit.
Balt. Ask favours of such a creature as Freeman! He speaks it but in jest. Yet if I did not know him to be one of the most independent men in the world, I should be tempted to believe that he too had become sophisticated.
Mrs. B. Ah do not torment yourself with suspicions! I am afraid it is a disposition that has been growing upon you of late.
Balt. No, madam; it is upon you this disposition has been growing. Whenever I am in the company of that—I will not name him—I have of late observed that your eyes are bent upon me perpetually. I hate to be look'd at when I am in that man's company.(Exeunt.
END OF THE FIRST ACT.