Synopsis
The play's opening scene introduces Oldrents and Hearty, two rural gentlemen and landowners. Oldrents is a generous and warmhearted countryman, who represents the best of the traditional order of England; but he is depressed and pre-occupied with a fortune-teller's prediction, that his two daughters will become beggars. Hearty, a younger and temperamentally more phegmatic man, works to cheer up his neighbor, and Oldrents tries to adopt a lighter demeanor. Oldrent's steward Springlove enters, to present the bookkeeping accounts and the keys of the estate, and to request leave to follow the beggars about the countryside for the spring and summer. Oldrents is unhappy about this: he wants his young steward to behave more conventionally, more like a gentleman — and offers to furnish him with funds and a servant ("Take horse, and man, and money") for respectable travelling. Yet Springlove rebels at this conventionality. The bird calls of the nightingale and cuckoo call him to vagabondage. (The play's stage directions repeatedly refer to summer birdsong.) As Oldrent's steward, Springlove has been a friend to the local beggars, feeding them generously and furnishing their needs; and once he joins them it turns out that he is something of a leader among them.
Oldrents' daughters Rachel and Meriel are shown with their childhood sweethearts and suitors Vincent and Hilliard. The two young women deplore their father's depressed mood, and the staid order of their lives; they long for "liberty." Vincent proposes "a fling to London" to take in the races at Hyde Park, "and see the Adamites run naked afore the Ladies" — but the young women are determined to go in the opposite direction, and join the "stark, errant, downright beggars." They challenge their suitors to join them, and the young men can hardly refuse; they link up with Springlove's band, and enjoy his protection and guidance. It is their "birthright into a new world."
Their initial efforts at the vagabond life are uneven, however; sleeping rough in the straw of a barn is less comfortable than a bed at home. When they try to beg, they employ the elaborate and courtly language they're used to, and ask for ridiculous sums, 5 or 10 or 20 pounds. Yet they persist with the beggars, and the play shows Springlove and his companions in their activities and celebrations. Oldrents is distressed to find that his daughters have left home; but Hearty prevails upon him to persist in his efforts to be cheerful.
The plot thickens with the introduction of Amie and Martin. Amie has fled from the home of her uncle and guardian, Justice Clack, to avoid an arranged marriage with the ridiculous Talboy; she is escorted by the justice's clerk Martin, Hearty's nephew. They have disguised themselves in the clothing of the common people, and travelled toward Hearty's country estate — though they are pursued by Clack's son Oliver and by beadles and other officers. Martin wants to marry Amie himself, though she sours on the idea as she travels with him and learns more of his character. Once Amie meets Springlove, she quickly falls in love with him. Oliver, chasing Amie, meets Rachel and Meriel; he is attracted to them, and propositions them. He also gets into a disagreement with Vincent and Hilliard, which threatens to lead them to the "field of hnour" and a duel.
Oliver visits the estate of Oldrents, and makes him aware of the pursuit of Amie — thereby drawing Oldrents and Hearty into the matter. The pursuing authorities round up many of the beggars and take them into custody, bringing them to Justice Clack. Oldrents and Hearty arrive at Clack's home; the beggars arrange to stage a play for the gentlemen. (As with his earlier The Antipodes, Brome incorporates the metatheatrical device of a play within a play into A Jovial Crew. Brome exploits the traditional equation of "strolling players" with vagabonds, by letting his vagabonds function as actors.) Oldrents is offered a choice of plays, with titles like The Two Lost Daughters, and The Vagrant Steward, and The Beggar's Prophecy. The old man recognizes all of them as versions of his own life, and rejects them, as "a story that I know too well. I'll see none of them." He finally settles on The Merry Beggars — but that too proves to be a version of his tale.
The beggars' playlet reveals that Oldrents' grandfather had taken advantage of a neighbor named Wrought-on, acquiring his land and reducing the man the beggary. The Patrico, the leader of the beggars, turns out to be the grandson of that Wrought-on; he is also the fortune-teller who had given Oldrents the original forecast of his daughters' beggary. And the Patrico also explains Oldrents' strangely strong affection for Springlove: the young beggar/steward is Oldrents' illegitimate son, born of a beggar-woman who was Wrought-on's sister. The family linkage allows the play's reconciliation: Oldrents embraces his son, and restores Wrought-on's property. Rachel and Meriel are ready to leave vagabondage and settle down with Vincent and Hilliard, as Springlove is with Amie. (Martin and Talboy have to reconcile themselves to continued bachelorhood, at least for the present; Hearty assures his nephew Martin that he'll help him find a wife. And the young people agree with Oliver to forget about the potential duel, and about the fact that Oliver propositioned the two Oldrents daughters for twelvepence apiece.) The play's complications yield to a happy ending.
Read more about this topic: A Jovial Crew