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What Will He Do With It, Book 1.

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WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT

BY

"PISISTRATUS CAXTON"

(LORD LYTTON)

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I.


WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

In which the history opens with a description of the social manners,
habits, and amusements of the English People, as exhibited in an
immemorial National Festivity.--Characters to be commemorated in the
history, introduced and graphically portrayed, with a nasological
illustration.--Original suggestions as to the idiosyncrasies
engendered by trades and callings, with other matters worthy of
note, conveyed in artless dialogue after the manner of Herodotus,
Father of History (mother unknown).


It was a summer fair in one of the prettiest villages in Surrey. The
main street was lined with booths, abounding in toys, gleaming crockery,
gay ribbons, and gilded ginger bread. Farther on, where the street
widened into the ample village-green, rose the more pretending fabrics
which lodged the attractive forms of the Mermaid, the Norfolk Giant; the
Pig-faced Lady, the Spotted Boy, and the Calf with Two Heads; while high
over even these edifices, and occupying the most conspicuous vantage-
ground, a lofty stage promised to rural playgoers the "Grand Melodramatic
Performance of The Remorseless Baron and the Bandit's Child." Music,
lively if artless, resounded on every side,--drums, fifes, penny-
whistles, cat-calls, and a hand-organ played by a dark foreigner, from
the height of whose shoulder a cynical but observant monkey eyed the
hubbub and cracked his nuts.

It was now sunset,--the throng at the fullest,--an animated, joyous
scene. The, day had been sultry; no clouds were to be seen, except low
on the western horizon, where they stretched, in lengthened ridges of
gold and purple, like the border-land between earth and sky. The tall
elms on the green were still, save, near the great stage, one or two,
upon which had climbed young urchins, whose laughing faces peered forth,
here and there, from the foliage trembling under their restless
movements.

Amidst the crowd, as it streamed saunteringly along, were two spectators;
strangers to the place, as was notably proved by the attention they
excited, and the broad jokes their dress and appearance provoked from the
rustic wits,--jokes which they took with amused good-humour, and
sometimes retaliated with a zest which had already made them very popular
personages. Indeed, there was that about them which propitiated liking.
They were young; and the freshness of enjoyment was so visible in their
faces, that it begot a sympathy, and wherever they went, other faces
brightened round them.

One of the two whom we have thus individualized was of that enviable age,
ranging from five-and-twenty to seven-and-twenty, in which, if a man
cannot contrive to make life very pleasant,--pitiable indeed must be the
state of his digestive organs. But you might see by this gentleman's
countenance that if there were many like him, it would be a worse world
for the doctors. His cheek, though not highly coloured, was yet ruddy
and clear; his hazel eyes were lively and keen; his hair, which escaped
in loose clusters from a jean shooting-cap set jauntily on a well-shaped
head, was of that deep sunny auburn rarely seen but in persons of
vigorous and hardy temperament. He was good-looking on the whole, and
would have deserved the more flattering epithet of handsome, but for his
nose, which was what the French call "a nose in the air,"--not a nose
supercilious, not a nose provocative, as such noses mostly are, but a
nose decidedly in earnest to make the best of itself and of things in
general,--a nose that would push its way up in life, but so pleasantly
that the most irritable fingers would never itch to lay hold of it. With
such a nose a man might play the violoncello, marry for love, or even
write poetry, and yet not go to the dogs.

Never would he stick in the mud so long as he followed that nose in the
air.

By the help of that nose this gentleman wore a black velveteen jacket of
foreign cut; a mustache and imperial (then much rarer in England than
they have been since the Siege of Sebastopol); and yet left you perfectly
convinced that he was an honest Englishman, who had not only no designs
on your pocket, but would not be easily duped by any designs upon his
own.

The companion of the personage thus sketched might be somewhere about
seventeen; but his gait, his air, his lithe, vigorous frame, showed a
manliness at variance with the boyish bloom of his face. He struck the
eye much more than his elder comrade. Not that he was regularly
handsome,--far from it; yet it is no paradox to say that he was
beautiful, at least, few indeed were the women who would not have called
him so. His hair, long like his friend's, was of a dark chestnut, with
gold gleaming through it where the sun fell, inclining to curl, and
singularly soft and silken in its texture. His large, clear, dark-blue,
happy eyes were fringed with long ebon lashes, and set under brows which
already wore the expression of intellectual power, and, better still, of
frank courage and open loyalty. His complexion was fair, and somewhat
pale, and his lips in laughing showed teeth exquisitely white and even.
But though his profile was clearly cut, it was far from the Greek ideal;
and he wanted the height of stature which is usually considered essential
to the personal pretensions of the male sex. Without being positively
short, he was still under middle height, and from the compact development
of his proportions, seemed already to have attained his full growth. His
dress, though not foreign, like his comrade's, was peculiar: a broad-
brimmed straw hat, with a wide blue ribbon; shirt collar turned down,
leaving the throat bare; a dark-green jacket of thinner material than
cloth; white trousers and waistcoat completed his costume. He looked
like a mother's darling,--perhaps he was one.

Scratch across his back went one of those ingenious mechanical
contrivances familiarly in vogue at fairs, which are designed to impress
upon the victim to whom they are applied, the pleasing conviction that
his garment is rent in twain.

The boy turned round so quickly that he caught the arm of the offender,--
a pretty village-girl, a year or two younger than himself. "Found in the
act, sentenced, punished," cried he, snatching a kiss, and receiving a
gentle slap. "And now, good for evil, here's a ribbon for you; choose."

The girl slunk back shyly, but her companions pushed her forward, and she
ended by selecting a cherry-coloured ribbon, for which the boy paid
carelessly, while his elder and wiser friend looked at him with grave,
compassionate rebuke, and grumbled out,--"Dr. Franklin tells us that once
in his life he paid too dear for a whistle; but then he was only seven
years old, and a whistle has its uses. But to pay such a price for a
scratch-back!--Prodigal! Come along."

As the friends strolled on, naturally enough all the young girls who
wished for ribbons, and were possessed of scratch-backs, followed in
their wake. Scratch went the instrument, but in vain.

"Lasses," said the elder, turning sharply upon them his nose in the air,
"ribbons are plentiful,--shillings scarce; and kisses, though pleasant in
private, are insipid in public. What, still! Beware! know that,
innocent as we seem, we are women-eaters; and if you follow us farther,
you are devoured! "So saying, he expanded his jaws to a width so
preternaturally large, and exhibited a row of grinders so formidable,
that the girls fell back in consternation. The friends turned down a
narrow alley between the booths, and though still pursued by some
adventurous and mercenary spirits, were comparatively undisturbed as they
threaded their way along the back of the booths, and arrived at last on
the village-green, and in front of the Great Stage.

"Oho, Lionel!" quoth the elder friend; "Thespian and classical,--worth
seeing, no doubt." Then turning to a grave cobbler in leathern apron,
who was regarding with saturnine interest the motley figures ranged in
front of the curtain as the Drumatis Persona, he said, "You seem
attracted, sir; you have probably already witnessed the performance."
"Yes," returned the Cobbler; "this is the third day, and to-morrow's the
last. I are n't missed once yet, and I sha' n't miss; but it are n't
what it was a while back."

"'That is sad; but then the same thing is said of everything by everybody
who has reached your respectable age, friend. Summers, and suns, stupid
old watering-places, and pretty young women, `are n't what they were a
while back.' If men and things go on degenerating in this way, our
grandchildren will have a dull time of it."

The Cobbler eyed the young man, and nodded approvingly. He had sense
enough to comprehend the ironical philosophy of the reply; and our
Cobbler loved talk out of the common way. "You speaks truly and
cleverly, sir. But if old folks do always say that things are worse than
they were, ben't there always summat in what is always said? I'm for the
old times; my neighbour, Joe Spruce, is for the new, and says we are all
a-progressing. But he 's a pink; I 'm a blue."

"You are a blue?" said the boy Lionel; "I don't understand."

"Young 'un, I'm a Tory,--that's blue; and Spruce is a Rad,--that's pink!
And, what is more to the purpose, he is a tailor, and I'm a cobbler."

"Aha!" said the elder, with much interest; "more to the purpose is it?
How so?"

The Cobbler put the forefinger of the right hand on the forefinger of the
left; it is the gesture of a man about to ratiocinate or demonstrate, as
Quintilian, in his remarks on the oratory of fingers, probably observes;
or if he has failed to do so, it is a blot in his essay.

"You see, sir," quoth the Cobbler, "that a man's business has a deal to
do with his manner of thinking. Every trade, I take it, has ideas as
belong to it. Butchers don't see life as bakers do; and if you talk to a
dozen tallow-chandlers, then to a dozen blacksmiths, you will see tallow-
chandlers are peculiar, and blacksmiths too."

"You are a keen observer," said he of the jean cap, admiringly; "your
remark is new to me; I dare say it is true."

"Course it is; and the stars have summat to do with it; for if they order
a man's calling, it stands to reason that they order a man's mind to fit
it. Now, a tailor sits on his board with others, and is always a-talking
with 'em, and a-reading the news; therefore he thinks, as his fellows do,
smart and sharp, bang up to the day, but nothing 'riginal and all his
own, like. But a cobbler," continued the man of leather, with a majestic
air, "sits by hisself, and talks with hisself; and what he thinks gets
into his head without being put there by another man's tongue."

"You enlighten me more and more," said our friend with the nose in the
air, bowing respectfully,--"a tailor is gregarious, a cobbler solitary.
The gregarious go with the future, the solitary stick by the past. I
understand why you are a Tory and perhaps a poet."

"Well, a bit of one," said the Cobbler, with an iron smile. "And many 's
the cobbler who is a poet,--or discovers marvellous things in a crystal,
--whereas a tailor, sir" (spoken with great contempt), "only sees the
upper leather of the world's sole in a newspaper."

Here the conversation was interrupted by a sudden pressure of the crowd
towards the theatre. The two young friends looked up, and saw that the
new object of attraction was a little girl, who seemed scarcely ten years
old, though in truth she was about two years older. She had just emerged
from behind the curtain, made her obeisance to the crowd, and was now
walking in front of the stage with the prettiest possible air of
infantine solemnity. "Poor little thing!" said Lionel. "Poor little
thing!" said the Cobbler. And had you been there, my reader, ten to one
but you would have said the same. And yet she was attired in white
satin, with spangled flounces and a tinsel jacket; and she wore a wreath
of flowers (to be sure, the flowers were not real) on her long fair
curls, with gaudy bracelets (to be sure, the stones were mock) on her
slender arms. Still there was something in her that all this finery
could not vulgarize; and since it could not vulgarize, you pitied her for
it. She had one of those charming faces that look straight into the
hearts of us all, young and old. And though she seemed quite self-
possessed, there was no effrontery in her air, but the ease of a little
lady, with a simple child's unconsciousness that there was anything in
her situation to induce you to sigh, "Poor thing!"

"You should see her act, young gents," said the Cobbler: "she plays
uncommon. But if you had seen him as taught her,--seen him a year ago."

"Who's he?"

"Waife, sir; mayhap you have heard speak of Waife?"

"I blush to say, no."

"Why, he might have made his fortune at Common Garden; but that's a long
story. Poor fellow! he's broke down now, anyhow. But she takes care of
him, little darling: God bless thee!" and the Cobbler here exchanged a
smile and a nod with the little girl, whose face brightened when she saw
him amidst the crowd.

"By the brush and pallet of Raphael!" cried the elder of the young men,
"before I am many hours older I must have that child's head!"

"Her head, man!" cried the Cobbler, aghast.

"In my sketch-book. You are a poet,--I a painter. You know the little
girl?"

"Don't I! She and her grandfather lodge with me; her grandfather,--
that's Waife,--marvellous man! But they ill-uses him; and if it warn't
for her, he'd starve. He fed them all once: he can feed them no longer;
he'd starve. That's the world: they use up a genus, and when it falls on
the road, push on; that's what Joe Spruce calls a-progressing. But
there's the drum! they're a-going to act; won't you look in, gents?"

"Of course," cried Lionel,--"of course. And, hark ye, Vance, we'll toss
up which shall be the first to take that little girl's head."

"Murderer in either sense of the word!" said Vance, with a smile that
would have become Correggio if a tyro had offered to toss up which should
be the first to paint a cherub.




CHAPTER II.

The historian takes a view of the British stage as represented by
the irregular drama, the regular having (ere the date of the events
to which this narrative is restricted) disappeared from the vestiges
of creation.

They entered the little theatre, and the Cobbler with them; but the last
retired modestly to the threepenny row. The young gentlemen were
favoured with reserved seats, price one shilling. "Very dear," murmured
Vance, as he carefully buttoned the pocket to which he restored a purse
woven from links of steel, after the fashion of chain mail. Ah,
Messieurs and Confreres the Dramatic Authors, do not flatter yourselves
that we are about to give you a complacent triumph over the Grand
Melodrame of "The Remorseless Baron and the Bandit's Child." We grant it
was horrible rubbish, regarded in an aesthetic point of view, but it was
mighty effective in the theatrical. Nobody yawned; you did not even hear
a cough, nor the cry of that omnipresent baby, who is always sure to set
up an unappeasable wail in the midmost interest of a classical five-act
piece, represented for the first time on the metropolitan boards. Here
the story rushed on, /per fas aut nefas/, and the audience went with it.
Certes, some man who understood the stage must have put the incidents
together, and then left it to each illiterate histrio to find the words,
--words, my dear confreres, signify so little in an acting play. The
movement is the thing. Grand secret! Analyze, practise it, and restore
to grateful stars that lost Pleiad the British Acting Drama.

Of course the Bandit was an ill-used and most estimable man. He had some
mysterious rights to the Estate and Castle of the Remorseless Baron.
That titled usurper, therefore, did all in his power to hunt the Bandit
out in his fastnesses and bring him to a bloody end. Here the interest
centred itself in the Bandit's child, who, we need not say, was the
little girl in the wreath and spangles, styled in the playbill "Miss
Juliet Araminta Wife," and the incidents consisted in her various devices
to foil the pursuit of the Baron and save her father. Some of these
incidents were indebted to the Comic Muse, and kept the audience in a
broad laugh. Her arch playfulness here was exquisite. With what
vivacity she duped the High Sheriff, who had the commands of his king to
take the Bandit alive or dead, into the belief that the very Lawyer
employed by the Baron was the criminal in disguise, and what pearly teeth
she showed when the Lawyer was seized and gagged! how dexterously she
ascertained the weak point in the character of the "King's Lieutenant"
(jeune premier), who was deputed by his royal master to aid the
Remorseless Baron in trouncing the Bandit! how cunningly she learned that
he was in love with the Baron's ward (jeune amoureuse), whom that
unworthy noble intended to force into a marriage with himself on account
of her fortune! how prettily she passed notes to and fro, the Lieutenant
never suspecting that she was the Bandit's child, and at last got the
king's soldier on her side, as the event proved! And oh, how gayly, and
with what mimic art, she stole into the Baron's castle, disguised as a
witch, startled his conscience with revelations and predictions,
frightened all the vassals with blue lights and chemical illusions, and
venturing even into the usurper's own private chamber, while the tyrant
was tossing restless on the couch, over which hung his terrible sword,
abstracted from his coffer the deeds that proved the better rights of the
persecuted Bandit! Then, when he woke before she could escape with her
treasure, and pursued her with his sword, with what glee she apparently
set herself on fire, and skipped out of the casement in an explosion of
crackers! And when the drama approached its /denouement/, when the
Baron's men, and the royal officers of justice, had, despite all her
arts, tracked the Bandit to the cave, in which, after various retreats,
he lay hidden, wounded by shots, and bruised by a fall from a precipice,
--with what admirable byplay she hovered around the spot, with what
pathos she sought to decoy away the pursuers! it was the skylark playing
round the nest. And when all was vain,--when, no longer to be deceived,
the enemies sought to seize her, how mockingly she eluded them, bounded
up the rock, and shook her slight finger at them in scorn! Surely she
will save that estimable Bandit still! Now, hitherto, though the Bandit
was the nominal hero of the piece, though you were always hearing of
him,--his wrongs, virtues, hairbreadth escapes,--he had never been seen.
Not Mrs. Harris, in the immortal narrative, was more quoted and more
mythical. But in the last scene there was the Bandit, there in his
cavern, helpless with bruises and wounds, lying on a rock. In rushed the
enemies, Baron, High Sheriff, and all, to seize him. Not a word spoke
the Bandit, but his attitude was sublime,--even Vance cried "bravo;" and
just as he is seized, halter round his neck, and about to be hanged, down
from the chasm above leaps his child, holding the title-deeds, filched
from the Baron, and by her side the King's Lieutenant, who proclaims the
Bandit's pardon, with due restoration to his honours and estates, and
consigns to the astounded Sheriff the august person of the Remorseless
Baron. Then the affecting scene, father and child in each other's arms;
and then an exclamation, which had been long hovering about the lips of
many of the audience, broke out, "Waife, Waife!" Yes, the Bandit, who
appeared but in the last scene, and even then uttered not a word, was the
once great actor on that itinerant Thespian stage, known through many a
fair for his exuberant humour, his impromptu jokes, his arch eye, his
redundant life of drollery, and the strange pathos or dignity with which
he could suddenly exalt a jester's part, and call forth tears in the
startled hush of laughter; he whom the Cobbler had rightly said, "might
have made a fortune at Covent Garden." There was the remnant of the old
popular mime!--all his attributes of eloquence reduced to dumb show!
Masterly touch of nature and of art in this representation of him,--touch
which all who had ever in former years seen and heard him on that stage
felt simultaneously. He came in for his personal portion of dramatic
tears. "Waife, Waife!" cried many a village voice, as the little girl
led him to the front of the stage.

He hobbled; there was a bandage round his eyes. The plot, in describing
the accident that had befallen the Bandit, idealized the genuine
infirmities of the man,--infirmities that had befallen him since last
seen in that village. He was blind of one eye; he had become crippled;
some malady of the trachea or larynx had seemingly broken up the once
joyous key of the old pleasant voice. He did not trust himself to speak,
even on that stage, but silently bent his head to the rustic audience;
and Vance, who was an habitual playgoer, saw in that simple salutation
that the man was an artistic actor. All was over, the audience streamed
out, much affected, and talking one to the other. It had not been at all
like the ordinary stage exhibitions at a village fair. Vance and Lionel
exchanged looks of surprise, and then, by a common impulse, moved towards
the stage, pushed aside the curtain, which had fallen, and were in that
strange world which has so many reduplications, fragments of one broken
mirror, whether in the proudest theatre or the lowliest barn,--nay,
whether in the palace of kings, the cabinet of statesmen, the home of
domestic life,--the world we call "Behind the Scenes."




CHAPTER III.

Striking illustrations of lawless tyranny and infant avarice
exemplified in the social conditions of Great Britain.--
Superstitions of the dark ages still in force amongst the trading
community, furnishing valuable hints to certain American
journalists, and highly suggestive of reflections humiliating to the
national vanity.

The Remorseless Baron, who was no other than the managerial proprietor of
the stage, was leaning against a sidescene with a pot of porter in his
hand. The King's Lieutenant might be seen on the background, toasting a
piece of cheese on the point of his loyal sword. The Bandit had crept
into a corner, and the little girl was clinging to him fondly as his hand
was stroking her fair hair. Vance looked round, and approached the
Bandit,--"Sir, allow me to congratulate you; your bow was admirable. I
have never seen John Kemble; before my time: but I shall fancy I have
seen him now,--seen him on the night of his retirement from the stage.
As to your grandchild, Miss Juliet Araminta, she is a perfect
chrysolite."

Before Mr. Waife could reply, the Remorseless Baron stepped up in a
spirit worthy of his odious and arbitrary character. "What do you do
here, sir? I allow no conspirators behind the scenes earwigging my
people."

"I beg pardon respectfully: I am an artist,--a pupil of the Royal
Academy; I should like to make a sketch of Miss Juliet Araminta."

"Sketch! nonsense."

"Sir," said Lionel, with the seasonable extravagance of early youth, "my
friend would, I am sure, pay for the sitting--handsomely!"

"Ha!" said the manager, softened, "you speak like a gentleman, sir: but,
sir, Miss Juliet Araminta is under my protection; in fact, she is my
property. Call and speak to me about it to-morrow, before the first
performance begins, which is twelve o'clock. Happy to see any of your
friends in the reserved seats. Busy now, and--and--in short--excuse me
--servant, sir--servant, sir."

The Baron's manner left no room for further parley. Vance bowed, smiled,
and retreated. But meanwhile his young friend had seized the opportunity
to speak both to Waife and his grandchild; and when Vance took his arm
and drew him away, there was a puzzled, musing expression on Lionel's
face, and he remained silent till they had got through the press of such
stragglers as still loitered before the stage, and were in a quiet corner
of the sward. Stars and moon were then up,--a lovely summer night.

"What on earth are you thinking of, Lionel? I have put to you three
questions, and you have not answered one."

"Vance," answered Lionel, slowly, "the oddest thing! I am so
disappointed in that little girl,--greedy and mercenary!"

"Precocious villain! how do you know that she is greedy and mercenary?"

"Listen: when that surly old manager came up to you, I said something--
civil, of course--to Waife, who answered in a hoarse, broken voice, but
in very good language. Well, when I told the manager that you would pay
for the sitting, the child caught hold of my arm hastily, pulled me down
to her own height, and whispered, 'How much will he give?' Confused by a
question so point-blank, I answered at random, 'I don't know; ten
shillings, perhaps.' You should have seen her face!"

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