Kitabı oku: «Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 1 (of 3)», sayfa 8

PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS

The three classes of gentlemen in Ireland described – Irish poets – Mr. Thomas Flinter and D. Henesey – The bard – Peculiarities of the peasants – Their ludicrous misinformation as to distances accounted for – Civility of a waiter – Equivocation of the peasants, and their misdirection of travellers to different places.

I will now proceed to lay before the reader a brief but more general sketch of the state of Irish society at the period of my youth, reminding him of the principle which I have before assumed; namely, that of considering anecdotes, bon-mots, and the like, valuable only as they tend to exemplify interesting facts relative to history or manners: many such I have inserted in these fragments; and as I have been careful throughout to avoid mere inventions, my reader need not, by any means, reserve their perusal for the study of his travelling carriage.

Miss Edgeworth, in her admirable sketch of Castle Rackrent, gives a tolerably faithful picture of the Irish character under the combination of circumstances which she has selected; and the account that I am about to give may serve as an elucidation of the habits and manners of Irish country society about the period Miss Edgeworth alludes to, and somewhat later – with which she could not be so well acquainted.

In those days, the common people ideally separated the gentry of the country into three classes, and treated each class according to the relative degree of respect to which they considered it entitled.

They generally divided them thus:

1. Half-mounted gentlemen.

2. Gentlemen every inch of them.

3. Gentlemen to the back-bone.

The first-named class formed the only species of independent yeomanry then existing in Ireland. They were the descendants of the small grantees of Queen Elizabeth, Cromwell, and King William III. by their confiscations; possessed about 200 or 300 acres of land each, in fee, from the Crown;²⁹ and were occasionally admitted into the society of better gentlemen – particularly hunters – living at other times amongst each other, with an intermixture of their own servants, with whom they were always on terms of intimacy. They generally had good clever horses, which could leap over any thing, but seldom felt the trimming-scissors or currycomb, unless they belonged to jockey gentlemen. The riders commonly wore buck-skin breeches, and boots well greased, (blacking was never used in the country,) and carried large thong whips heavily loaded with lead at the butt-end, so that they were always prepared either to horsewhip a man or knock his brains out, as circumstances might dictate. These half-mounted gentlemen exercised hereditarily the authority of keeping the ground clear at horse-races, hurlings, and all public meetings (as soldiers keep the lines at a review). Their business was to ride round the inside of the ground, which they generally did with becoming spirit, trampling over some, knocking down others, and slashing every body who encroached on the proper limits. Bones being but very seldom broken, and skulls still seldomer fractured, every body approved of their exertions, because all the by-standers gained thereby a full view of the sport which was going forward. A shout of merriment was always set up when a half-mounted gentleman knocked down an interloper; and some of the poets present, if they had an opportunity, roared out their verses³⁰ by way of a song to encourage the gentlemen.

The second class, or gentlemen every inch of them, were of excellent old families; – whose finances were not in so good order as they might have been, but who were not the less popular amongst all ranks. They were far above the first degree, somewhat inferior to the third; but had great influence; were much beloved, and carried more sway at popular elections and general county meetings than the other two classes put together.

The third class, or gentlemen to the back-bone, were of the oldest families and settlers, universally respected, and idolised by the peasantry, although they also were generally a little out at elbows. Their word was law; their nod would have immediately collected an army of cottagers, or colliers, or whatever the population was composed of. Men, women, and children, were always ready and willing to execute any thing “the squire” required, without the slightest consideration as to either its danger or propriety. The grand juries were selected from the two last classes.³¹

A curious circumstance perhaps rendered my family peculiarly popular. The common people had conceived the notion that the lord of Cullenaghmore had a right to save a man’s life every summer assizes at Maryborough; and it did frequently so happen, within my recollection, that my father’s intercession in favour of some poor deluded creatures (when the White Boy system was in activity) was kindly attended to by the government; and, certainly, besides this number, many others of his tenants owed their lives to similar interference. But it was wise in the government to accede to such representations; since their concession never failed to create such an influence in my father’s person over the tenantry, that he was enabled to preserve them in perfect tranquillity, whilst those surrounding were in a constant state of insubordination to all law whatever. Hanging the Irish will never either reform their morals, or thin their population.

I recollect a Mr. Tom Flinter, of Timahoe, one of the first-class gentlemen, who had speculated in cows and sheep, and every thing he could buy up, till his establishment was reduced to one blunt faithful fellow, Dick Henesey, who stuck to him throughout all his vicissitudes. Flinter had once on a time got a trifle of money, which was burning in his greasy pocket, and he wanted to expend it at a neighbouring fair! where his whole history, as well as the history of every man of his half-mounted contemporaries, was told in a few verses,³² by a fellow called Ned the dog-stealer, but who was also a great poet, and resided in the neighbourhood: – he was remarkably expert at both his trades.

In travelling through Ireland, a stranger is very frequently puzzled by the singular ways, and especially by the idiomatic equivocation, characteristic of every Irish peasant. Some years back, more particularly, these men were certainly originals – quite unlike any other people whatever. Many an hour of curious entertainment has been afforded me by their eccentricities; yet, though always fond of prying into the remote sources of these national peculiarities, I must frankly confess that, with all my pains, I never was able to develop half of them, except by one sweeping observation; namely, that the brains and tongues of the Irish are somehow differently formed or furnished from those of other people. Phrenology may be a very good science; but the heads of the Irish would puzzle the very best of its professors. Very few of those belonging to the peasantry, indeed, leave the world in the same shape they came into it. After twenty years of age, the shillelah quite alters the natural formation, and leaves so many hills and hollows upon their skulls, that the organ of fighting is the only one discoverable to any certainty.

One general hint which I beg to impress upon all travellers in Hibernia, is this: that if they show a disposition toward kindness, together with a moderate familiarity, and affect to be inquisitive, whether so or not, the Irish peasant will outdo them tenfold in every one of these dispositions. But if a man is haughty and overbearing, he had better take care of himself.

I have often heard it remarked and complained of by travellers and strangers, that they never could, when on a journey, get a true answer from any Irish peasant as to distances. For many years I myself thought it most unaccountable. If you meet a peasant on your road, and ask him how far, for instance, to Ballinrobe, he will probably say it is, “three short miles!” You travel on, and are informed by the next peasant you meet, “that it is five long miles!” On you go, and the next will tell “your honour” it is “a long mile, or about that same!” The fourth will swear “if your honour stops at three miles, you’ll never get there!” But, on pointing to a town just before you, and inquiring what place that is, he replies,

“Oh! plaze your honour, that’s Ballinrobe, sure enough!”

“Why you said it was more than three miles off!”

“Oh yes! to be sure and sartain, that’s from my own cabin, plaze your honour. – We’re no scholards in this country. Arrah! how can we tell any distance, plaze your honour, but from our own little cabins? Nobody but the schoolmaster knows that, plaze your honour.”

Thus is the mystery unravelled. When you ask any peasant the distance of the place you require, he never computes it from where you then are, but from his own cabin; so that, if you asked twenty, in all probability you would have as many different answers, and not one of them correct. But it is to be observed, that frequently you can get no reply at all, unless you understand Irish.

In parts of Kerry and Mayo, however, I have met with peasants who speak Latin not badly. On the election of Sir John Brown for the county of Mayo, Counsellor Thomas Moore and I went down as his counsel. The weather was desperately severe. At a solitary inn, where we were obliged to stop for horses, we requested dinner; upon which, the waiter laid a cloth that certainly exhibited every species of dirt ever invented. We called, and remonstrating with him, ordered a clean cloth. He was a low fat fellow, with a countenance perfectly immoveable, and seeming to have scarcely a single muscle in it. He nodded, and on our return to the room, (which we had quitted during the interval,) we found, instead of a clean cloth, that he had only folded up the filthy one into the thickness of a cushion, and replaced it with great solemnity. We now scolded away in good earnest. He looked at us with the greatest sang-froid, said sententiously, “Nemo me impune lacessit!” and turned his back on us.

He kept his word; when we had proceeded about four miles in deep snow, through a desperate night, and on a bleak bog-road, one of the wheels came off the carriage, and down we went! We were at least three miles from any house. The driver cursed (in Irish) Michael the waiter, who, he said, “had put a bran new wheel upon the carriage, which had turned out to be an old one, and had broken to pieces. It must be the devil,” continued he, “that changed it. Bad luck to you, Michael the waiter, any how! He’s nothin else but a treacherous blackguard, plaze your honour!”

We had to march through the snow to a wretched cottage, and sit up all night in the chimney corner, covered with ashes and smoke, and in company with one of the travelling fools who are admitted and welcomed for good luck in every cabin, whilst a genuine new wheel was got ready for the morning.

The Irish peasant, also, never, if he can avoid it, answers any question directly: in some districts, if you ask where such a gentleman’s house is, he will point and reply, “Does your honour see that large house there, all amongst the trees, with a green field before it?” – You answer, “Yes.” “Well,” says he, “plaze your honour that’s not it. But do you see the big brick house, with the cow-houses by the side of that same, and a pond of water? – you can’t see the ducks, becaze they are always diving, plaze your honour.”

“Yes.”

“Well, your honour, that’s not it. But, if you plaze, look quite to the right of that same house, and you’ll see the top of a castle amongst the trees there, with a road going down to it betune the bushes, – and a damn’d bad road, too, for either a beast or his master!”

“Yes.”

“Well, plaze your honour, that’s not it neither – but if your honour will come down this bit of a road a couple of miles, I’ll show it you sure enough– and if your honour’s in a hurry, I can run on hot foot,³³ and tell the squire your honour’s galloping after me. Ah! who shall I tell the squire, plaze your honour, is coming to see him? – he’s my own landlord, God save his honour day and night!”

Their superstitions are very whimsical. On returning from the election of Mayo, I asked a fellow who was trotting away by the side of the carriage, and every now and then giving a long hop, to show us his agility – (twisting his shillelah over his head like a whirligig) – “if he was going far that night.”

“Ough! no, no, plaze your honour; it is me that would not go far in this country, these times, after sunset – oh, no, no!”

Fancying he alluded to robbers, I did not feel comfortable: – “And pray, friend,” said I, “why not?”

“I’ll tell your honour that: – becaze, plaze your honour, all the ould people say that the devil comes out of Castlebar after sun-down, to look for prey, from the day the Virgin was delivered till Candlemas eve, and all the priests can’t do nothing against him in this quarter. But he’s never seen no more the same year till the holly and ivy drive him out of all the chapels and towns again coming Christmas – and that’s the truth, and nothing else, plaze your honour’s honour!”

IRISH INNS

Their general character – Objections commonly made to them – Answer thereto – Sir Charles Vernon’s mimicry – Moll Harding – Accident nearly of a fatal nature to the author.

An Irish inn has been an eternal subject of ridicule to every writer upon the habits and accommodations of my native country. It is true that, in the early period of my life, most of the inns in Ireland were nearly of the same quality – a composition of slovenliness, bad meat, worse cooking, and few vegetables (save the royal Irish potato); but with plenty of fine eggs, smoked bacon, often excellent chickens, and occasionally the hen, as soon as she had done hatching them – if you could chew her. They generally had capital claret, and plenty of civility in all its ramifications.³⁴

The poor people did their best to entertain their guests, but did not understand their trade; and even had it been otherwise, they had neither furniture, nor money, nor credit, nor cattle, nor customers enough to keep things going well together. There were then no post-horses nor carriages, – consequently, very little travelling in Ireland; and if there had been, the ruts and holes would have rendered thirty miles a-day a good journey. Yet I verily believe, on the whole, that the people in general were happier, at least they appeared vastly more contented, than at present. I certainly never met with so bad a thing in Ireland as the “Red Cow” in John Bull: for whatever might have been its quality, there was plenty of something or other always to be had at the inns to assuage hunger and thirst.

The best description I ever recollect to have heard of an Irish inn, its incidents and appurtenances, was in a sort of medley sung and spoken by the present Sir Charles Vernon, when he had some place in the Lord Lieutenant’s establishment at Dublin Castle: it was delivered by him to amuse the company after supper, and was an excellent piece of mimicry. He took off ducks, geese, pigs, chickens, cattle-drivers, the cook and the landlady, the guests, &c., to the greatest possible perfection.

One anecdote respecting an Irish inn may, with modifications, give some idea of others at that period. A Mrs. Moll Harding kept the natest inn at Ballyroan, close to my father’s house. I recollect to have heard a passenger (they were very scarce there) telling her, “that his sheets had not been aired.” With great civility Moll Harding begged his honour’s pardon, and said, – “they certainly were, and must have been well aired, for there was not a gentleman came to the house the last fortnight that had not slept in them!”

Another incident which occurred in an Irish inn is, for very good reasons, much more firmly impressed on my recollection, and may give a hint worth having to some curious travellers in their peregrinations to Kerry, Killarney, &c.

The present Earl Farnham had a most beautiful demesne at a village called Newtown Barry, County Wexford. It is a choice spot, and his Lordship resided in a very small house in the village. He was always so obliging as to make me dine with him on my circuit journey, and I slept at the little inn – in those days a very poor-looking one indeed – but not bad.

The day of my arrival was, on one occasion, wet, so that to proceed was impossible, and a very large assemblage of barristers were necessitated to put up with any accommodation they could get. I was sure of a good dinner; but every bed was engaged. I dined with Lord F., took my wine merrily, and adjourned to the inn, determined to sit up all night at the kitchen fire. I found every one of my brethren in bed; the maid-servant full of good liquor; and the man and woman of the house quite as joyously provided for. The landlady declared, she could not think of permitting my honour to sit up; and if I would accept of their little snug cupboard-bed by the fire-side, I should be as warm and comfortable as my heart could wish, and heartily welcome too. This arrangement I thought a most agreeable one: the bed was let down from the niche into which it had been folded up, and, in a few minutes, I was in a comfortable slumber.

My first sensation in the morning was, however, one which it is not in my power to describe now, because I could not do so five minutes after it was over; – suffice it to say, I found myself in a state of suffocation, with my head down and my feet upward! I had neither time nor power for reflection: – I attempted to cry out, but that was impossible; – the agonies of death, I suppose, were coming on me, and some convulsive effort gave me a supernatural strength that probably saved me from a most whimsical and inglorious departure. On a sudden I felt my position change; and with a crash sounding to me like thunder, down the bed and I came upon the floor. – I then felt that I had the power of a little articulation, and cried out “murder!” with as much vehemence as I was able. The man, woman, and maid, by this time all tolerably sober, came running into the room together. The landlady made no inquiry, but joined me in crying out murder in her loudest key: the maid alone knew the cause of my disaster, and ran as fast as she could for the apothecary. I had, however, recovered after large draughts of water, and obtained sense enough to guess at my situation.

The maid, having been thoroughly moistened when I went to bed, on awakening just at break of day, began to set matters to rights, and perceiving her master and mistress already up, had totally forgotten the counsellor! and having stronger arms of her own than any barrister of the home circuit, in order to clear the kitchen, had hoisted up the bed into its proper niche, and turned the button at the top that kept it in its place: in consequence of which, down went my head and up went my heels! Now, as air is an article indispensably necessary to existence (and there was none under the bed-clothes), death would very soon have ended the argument, had not my violent struggles caused the button to give way, and so brought me once more from among the Antipodes. – The poor woman was as much alarmed as I was!

I felt no inconvenience afterward. But what has happened once may chance to occur again; and I only wonder that the same accident does not frequently take place among this kind of people and of beds.

FATAL DUEL OF MY BROTHER

Duel of my brother William Barrington with Mr. M‘Kenzie – He is killed by his antagonist’s second, General Gillespie – The general’s character – Tried for murder – Judge Bradstreet’s charge – Extraordinary incidents of the trial – The jury arranged – The high sheriff (Mr. Lyons) challenged by mistake – His hair cut off by Henry French Barrington – Exhibited in the ball-room – The Curl Club formed – The sheriff quits the country, and never returns – Gillespie goes to India – Killed there – Observations on his cenotaph in Westminster Abbey.

As the circumstances attending the death of my younger brother, William Barrington, by the hand of the celebrated General Gillespie, (whom government has honoured with a monument in Westminster Abbey,) have been variously detailed, (seldom, indeed, twice the same way,) I think it right to take this opportunity of stating the facts of that most melancholy transaction. I will do so as concisely as may be, and as dispassionately as what I consider the murder of a beloved brother will admit.

William Barrington had passed his twentieth year, and had intended, without delay, to embrace the military profession. He was active, lively, full of spirit and of animal courage; – his predominant traits were excessive good-nature, and a most zealous attachment to the honour and individuals of his family.

Gillespie, then captain in a cavalry regiment, had shortly before the period in question married a Miss Taylor, an intimate friend of ours, and was quartered in Athy, where my mother resided.

A very close and daily intercourse sprang up between the families. After dinner, one day, at Gillespie’s house, when every gentleman had taken more wine than was prudent, a dispute arose between my brother and a Mr. M‘Kenzie, lieutenant in an infantry regiment, quartered at the same place. This dispute never should have been suffered to arise; and, as it was totally private, should, at least, never have proceeded further. But no attempt was made either to reconcile or check it, on the part of Captain Gillespie, although the thing occurred at his own table. – He never liked my brother.

Gillespie was a very handsome person; but it was not that species of soldier-like and manly beauty, which bespeaks the union of courage and generosity. He had a fair and smooth countenance, wherein the tinge of reckless impetuosity appeared to betray his prevailing character. His, however, was not the rapid flow of transitory anger, which, rushing ingenuously from the heart, is instantly suppressed by reason and repentance: – I admire that temper; it never inhabits the same mind with treachery or malice. On the contrary, a livid paleness overspread the plethoric countenance of Gillespie upon the slightest ruffle of his humour: – the vulgar call such, “white-livered persons:” they are no favourites with the world in general; and I have never, throughout the course of a long life, observed any man so constituted possessing a list of virtues.

I never could bear Gillespie! I had an instinctive dislike to him, which I strove, in vain, to conquer. I always considered him to be a dangerous man – an impetuous, unsafe, companion – capable of any thing in his anger. I know I ought not to speak with prejudice; yet, alas! if I do, who can blame me?

A cenotaph, voted by the British Parliament, has raised his fame: – but it is the fame of a sabreur– erected on piles of slaughter, and cemented by the blood of Indians. No tale of social virtues appears to enrich the cornice of his monument. I wish there had! it would at least have indicated repentance.

To return to my story. – Midway between Athy and Carlow was agreed on for a meeting. I resided in Dublin, and was ignorant of the transaction till too late. A crowd, as usual in Ireland, attended the combat; several gentlemen, and some relatives of mine, were, I regret to say, present. In a small verdant field, on the bank of the Barrow, my brother and M‘Kenzie were placed. Gillespie, who had been considered as the friend and intimate of my family, volunteered as second to M‘Kenzie, (a comparative stranger,) who was in no way adverse to an amicable arrangement. Gillespie, however, would hear of none; the honour of a military man, he said, must be satisfied, and nothing but blood, or at least every effort to draw it, could form that satisfaction.

The combatants fired and missed: – they fired again; no mischief was the consequence. A reconciliation was now proposed, but objected to by Gillespie: – and will it be believed that, in a civilised country, when both combatants were satisfied, one of the principals should be instantly slain by a second? Yet such was the case: my brother stood two fires from his opponent, and after professing his readiness to be reconciled, was shot dead by the hand of his opponent’s second.

Gillespie himself is now departed: he died by the same death that he had inflicted. But he was more favoured by Providence; – he died the death of a soldier; – he fell by the hand of the enemy, not by the weapon of an intimate.

William was my very beloved brother. The news soon reached me in Dublin. I could not, or rather, I durst not, give utterance to the nature and excess of my feelings on the communication. Thus much I will admit – that sorrow had the least share in those thoughts which predominated. A passion not naturally mine absorbed every other: – my determination was fixed: I immediately set out post; but my brother had been interred prior to my arrival; and Gillespie, the sole object of my vengeance, had fled, nor was his retreat to be discovered. I lost no time in procuring a warrant for murder against him from Mr. Ryan, a magistrate. I sought him in every place to which I could attach suspicion; day and night my pursuit was continued, but, as it pleased God, in vain. I was not, indeed, in a fit state for such a rencontre; for had we met, he or I would surely have perished.

I returned to Dublin, and, as my mind grew cooler, thanked Heaven that I had not personally found him. I, however, published advertisements widely, offering a reward for his apprehension; and at length he surrendered into the prison of Maryborough, to take his trial.

The assizes approached; and I cannot give the sequel of this melancholy story better than by a short recital of Gillespie’s extraordinary trial, and the still more extraordinary incidents which terminated the transaction.

The judges arrived at the assize town, (it was during the summer assizes of 1788,) accompanied in the usual way by the high sheriff, (Mr. Lyons, of Watercastle,) and escorted by numerous bailiffs and a grand cavalcade. Mr. Lyons was a gentleman of taste and elegance, who had travelled much, but very seldom came to Ireland: he possessed a small fortune and a beautiful cottage ornée, on the banks of the Nore, near Lord De Vesci’s. Mr. Thomas Kemmis (afterward crown solicitor of Ireland, and a sincere friend of mine,) was the attorney very judiciously selected by Captain Gillespie to conduct his defence.

The mode of choosing juries in criminal cases is well known to every lawyer, and its description would be uninteresting to an ordinary reader. Suffice it to say, that by the methods then used of selecting, arranging, and summoning the panel, a sheriff, or sub-sheriff, in good understanding with a prisoner, might afford him very considerable, if not decisive, aid. And when it is considered that juries must be unanimous, even one dissentient or obstinate juror being capable of effectually preventing any conviction, – and further, that the charge we are alluding to was that of murder or homicide, occurring in consequence of a duel, on the same ground and at the same time, – it might fairly be expected that the culprit would stand a chance of acquittal from military men, who, accustomed to duelling, and living in a country where affairs of that kind were then more frequent than in any other, might be inclined to regard the circumstance more indulgently than a jury of mere civilians.

To select, by management, a military jury, was therefore the natural object of the prisoner and his friends; and, in fact, the list appeared with a number of half-pay officers at the head of it, who, as gentlemen, were naturally pained by seeing a brother-officer and a man of most prepossessing appearance, in the dock for murder. The two prisoners (Gillespie and M‘Kenzie) challenged forty-eight; the list was expended, and the prosecutor was driven back to show cause why he objected to the first thirteen. No legal ground for such objection could be supported; and thus, out of twelve jurors, no less than ten were military officers! The present Lord Downs and the late Judge Fletcher were the prisoner’s counsel.

On this, perhaps, the most interesting trial ever known in that county, numerous witnesses having been examined, the principal facts proved for the prosecution were: – that after M‘Kenzie and my brother had fired four shots without effect, the latter said he hoped enough had been done for both their honours, at the same time holding out his hand to M‘Kenzie, – whose second, Captain Gillespie, exclaimed, that his friend should not be satisfied, and that the affair should proceed. The spectators combined in considering it concluded, and a small circle having been formed, my brother, who persisted in uttering his pacific wishes, interposed some harsh expressions toward Gillespie, who thereupon losing all control over his temper, suddenly threw a handkerchief to William Barrington, asking if he dared take a corner of that! – The unfortunate boy, full of spirit and intrepidity, snatched at the handkerchief, and at the same moment received a ball from Gillespie through his body; – so close were they together, that his coat appeared scorched by the powder. He fell, and was carried to a cabin hard by, where he expired in great agony the same evening. As he was in the act of falling, his pistol went off. Gillespie immediately fled, and was followed by three of his own dragoons, whom he had brought with him, and who were present at the transaction, but whom he declined examining on the trial. The spectators were very numerous, and scarcely a dry eye left the field.

Capt. Gillespie’s defence rested upon an assertion on his part of irritating expressions having been used by my brother, adding that the cock of his own pistol was knocked off by my brother’s fire. But that very fact proved every thing against him; because his shot must have been fired and have taken effect in my brother’s body previously; for if the cock had been broken in the first place, Gillespie’s pistol could not have gone off. In truth, the whole circumstance of a second killing a principal because he desired reconciliation was, and remains, totally unexampled in the history of duelling even in the most barbarous eras and countries.