Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3)

I immediately rose, brought out my two eggs to our breakfast-table, and was expressing my surprise at the circumstance, when Miss Betty Jennings winked, and whispered me that it was a standing joke of her father’s. – The breakfast was nearly as good as the dinner had been the previous day; and on procuring my bill, I found I was charged eighteen pence for dinner, eighteen pence for claret, tenpence for my horses, sixpence for my breakfast, and nothing for the rest, though Matthew Querns had got dead drunk, my horses were nearly bursting, and I was little better myself. My host told me, when a guest who would drink with him had a bottle of claret, he always indulged in one himself; and that if I had drunk two, he should have thought it mighty uncivil if he had not done the same. I left his house with an impression that he was the most extraordinary innkeeper I had ever met with, and really bade adieu to himself and his daughters with regret.22

Arriving in the course of the day at Turlow, I found that the whole family were at Castle Magarret; but Mr. Fitzgerald had got a letter about me, and all was ready for my reception. I found I was left to the care of one Hughy Hearn, who had been a serjeant of the band, but had changed sides and come over to Mr. Lionel at Turlow, after losing one of his arms in some skirmish for George Robert. I did not know who Hughy was at the time, or I should have kept aloof from him.

“Mr. Hearn,” said I, next day, “have you a gun in the house? I should like to go out.”

“I have, captain,” said he.

“Have you powder and shot?” said I.

“No powder,” said Hughy. “I fired all I had left of it last night at a man whom I saw skulking about the road after nightfall.”

“Did you hit him?” asked I, rather alarmed.

“I can’t say,” replied Hughy: “there was only one bullet in it, and it’s not so easy to shoot a man with a single bullet when the night is very dark – and I’m hard set to aim with one arm, though I dare say I all as one as scratcht him, for he cried out, ‘Oh! bad luck to you, Hughy!’ and ran down the cross lane before I could get the other double to slap after him.”

I immediately set about recruiting the outlaws with the utmost activity and success. I appointed Hughy Hearn, who had but one arm, my drill-serjeant, and a monstrous athletic ruffian of the name of O’Mealy, my corporal, major, and inspector of recruits. I found no difficulty whatsoever in prevailing on them to take my money, clap up my cockade, get drunk, beat the towns-people, and swear “true allegiance to King George, Sir Eyre Coote, and myself.” This was the oath I administered to them, as they all seemed zealous to come with me; but I took care not to tell them where.

The kindness and hospitality I meanwhile received at Turlow, from Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald, was extremely gratifying: nobody could be more interesting than the latter. There I met two remarkable persons of that country – George Lyster, whose finger was broken by George Robert Fitzgerald, as previously mentioned, and a little, decrepid sharp-witted dog, called George Elliston, who afterward challenged me, and threatened Counsellor Saurin, because we did not succeed in a bad cause of his in the King’s Bench, wherein we had taken his briefs without fees, as a matter of kindness to a pretended sufferer.

In less than a fortnight I had enlisted between fifty and sixty able, good-looking outlaws; and as my money was running low, I determined to march off my first batch of fifty men, three serjeants, and three corporals, for Dublin, and having placed them in depôt there, to return and make up my number with a replenished purse.

To give my march the greater éclat, I chose a market-day of Castlebar whereon to parade and address my company. There happened to be also a fair of linen yarn, and the street was crowded with cars laden with hanks of yarn of different sizes and colours. Having drawn up my men, I ordered each one to get a bumper of whisky; after which, taking off their hats, they gave three cheers for King George, Sir Eyre Coote, and Captain Barrington. I then made them a speech from the top of a car. I told them we were going to a place where the halfpennys were made of gold; where plunder was permitted by the Honourable Company, and the officers taught their men how to avail themselves of this permission; where robbery and murder were not hanging matters, as in Ireland; where women were married at nine years’ old, and every soldier had as many wives as he could keep from starving, with a right to rob the rich, in order to support a barrack full of them.

In short, I expatiated on all the pleasures and comforts I purposed for them; and received in return three more cheers – though neither so long or loud as I could have wished; and I perceived a good deal of whispering among my soldiers which I could not account for, save by the pain they might feel in taking leave of their fellow-robbers, as was natural enough. I was, however, soon undeceived, when, on ordering them to march, one said aloud, as if he spoke for the rest, “March is it? march, then, for fat?”

Observing their reluctance to quit Castlebar, I felt my young, slight, and giddy self swell with all the pride and importance of a martinet; I almost fancied myself a giant, and my big recruits mere pigmies. “Here, serjeant,” said I arrogantly to Hughy Hearn, “draw up those mutineers: fall in – fall in!” but nobody fell in, and Serjeant Hearn himself fell back. “Serjeant,” pursued I, “this moment arrest Corporal O’Mealy, he’s the ringleader.”

“He won’t let me, captain,” replied Serjeant Hearn.

“’Tis your captain’s command!” exclaimed I.

“He says your honour’s no captain at all,” said Hughy Hearn; “only a slip of a crimp, nothing else but a gaoler’s son, that wants to sell the boys like negers, all as one as Hart and the green linnets in Dublin city.”

My choler could no longer be restrained: – I drew my broadsword, and vowed I would divide the head of the first man that refused to march. “I’ll teach these mutineers to obey his majesty’s commission and officer,” said I.

Corporal O’Mealy and two others then took off their hats, and coming up to me, said with great good-humour and civility, “Well, captain dear, you’ll forgive and forget a joke from your own boys, so you will. Sure ’twas nothin else but a parting joke for the fair, your honour! Arrah! put up that sliver of yours: sure it looks nasty in the fair, to be drawing your falchion on your own recruits, captain.”

I had no suspicion; and the hanger was scarce secure in its scabbard, when some of my soldiers came behind me, and others in front, and I was completely surrounded. “I’ll show you all that I am a captain, and a true captain,” continued I. “Here, serjeant! bring me my beating orders.”

“Beating– Ough! is that what you’d be at?” said Corporal O’Mealy, who now assumed the command. “Ough! if it’s ‘beating’ you want, by my sowl you’ll be easily satisfied without Hughy Hearn’s orders.”

I could stand it no longer: I could not run away if I wished; a crowd was collecting around me, and so I sprang at the smallest of the recruits, whom I thought I could master, and seized him by the throat; but a smart crack given with a hank of linen yarn by some hand behind soon made me quit my prey; another crack from another quarter quickly followed. I turned round to see my executioners, when I was suddenly wheeled back by the application of a third hank. This cracking, like a feu de joie, increased every moment, and was accompanied with vociferous laughs. In short, they pounded me almost to a jelly with hanks of linen yarn, which lay ready to their hands on all the cars around us. At length, stooping down between two cars, I had the pleasure of seeing the whole of my recruits, drawn up by O’Mealy – for it appeared he was their real captain– march regularly by me, every fellow in turn saluting any part of me he thought proper with a hank of yarn; – and with a shout I still remember of “A George! a George! long life to our colonel!” they quitted the fair – as I learned, to take forcible possession of a house and farm from which one of them had been ejected – which feat I afterward heard they regularly performed that very night, with the addition of roasting the new proprietor in his own kitchen.

Though I had no bones broken, some of my flesh took pretty much the colour and consistence of what cooks call aspic jelly. I was placed on a low garron, and returned to Turlow at night, sick, sore, and sorry. There I pretended I was only fatigued, and had taken cold; and after experiencing the kind hospitality of Mrs. Fitzgerald – then a most interesting young lady – on the fourth day, at an early hour of a frosty morning, old Matthew Querns and I mounted our horses, without my having obtained any thing more for my trouble, and money spent in the recruiting service, than a sound beating. A return carriage of Lord Altamont’s having overtaken me on the road, I entered it, and was set down at the little inn at Hallymount, where I remained some days with Mr. Jennings and family, recovering from my bruises, and sighing over the wreck of my fondly anticipated glories as a renowned colonel at the head of my regiment, plundering a pagoda and picking precious stones out of an idol. But, alas! having lost all the remaining cash out of my pocket during the scuffle at Castlebar, instead of a lac of rupees, I found myself labouring under a complete lack of guineas, and was compelled to borrow sufficient from Candy, the innkeeper at Ballynasloe, to carry me home by easy stages. Thus did my military ardour receive its definitive cooling: no ice-house ever chilled champaign more effectually. I, however, got quite enough of hospitality at Turlow, and quite enough of thrashing at Castlebar, to engraft the whole circumstances on my memory.

This journey gave me an opportunity of inspecting all the scenes of Mr. George Robert Fitzgerald’s exploits. The cave in which he confined his father, showed to me by Hughy Hearn, was concealed by bushes, and wrought under one of the old Danish moats, peculiar, I believe, to Ireland. Yet, in the perpetration of that act of brutality, almost of parricide, he kept up the singular inconsistency of his character. Over the entrance to the subterraneous prison of his parent a specimen of classic elegance is exhibited by this inscription graven on a stone:

Intus ager dulces – vivoqueSedilia Saxo – Nympharumque domus.

A NIGHT JOURNEY

Mr. Fitzgerald’s agent and attorney – Capriciousness of courage – Jack tar, his intrepidity – New lights – Sailors and saints – Description of Mr. T – His temerity in court and timorousness out of it – Regularly retained by Fitzgerald – Starts with him on a journey to Turlow – Travelling companions – The eloquent snore– Mr. T – ’s apprehensions – A daylight discovery – Double escape of the solicitor – His return to Dublin – Mr. Brecknock, his successor – Fate of that individual – The “murderer murdered.”

Mr. T – , a solicitor of repute in Dublin, had been selected by George Robert Fitzgerald to transact all his law and other business, as his attorney and agent.

The choice was extremely judicious: – Fitzgerald had made a secret vow, that while he existed, he never would encourage such a nest of tricksters and extortioners as attorneys, by paying any bill of cost, right or wrong, long or short; and to carry this pious vow into full execution, so far as regarded one attorney, he could not have made a better selection than that above stated.

There are few qualities of the human mind more capricious than courage; and I have known many instances in my passage through life, wherein men have been as courageous as a lion on one occasion, and as timorous as a little girl on others. I knew an English general who had never failed to signalise himself by intrepidity and contempt for death or fracture when engaged with the enemy, and was yet the most fearful being in the world lest he should be overset in a mail-coach. I have known men ready to fight any thing by daylight, run like hares in the night-time from the very same object. The capriciousness of courage is, indeed, so unaccountable, that it has ever been to me a source of amusing reflection. Not being myself of a very timorous disposition, and though I cannot say I ever experienced great fear of actual death in any proper reasonable way by the hands of a Christian – nay, even should it be a doctor – I always felt the greatest dread of getting a bite from the teeth of a mastiff, and never passed the heels of a horse without experiencing strong symptoms of cowardice. I always felt much stouter by daylight too than in the night-time.

I have ever observed that the courage of sailors is, of all other species, the most perfect. I scarce ever met a common sailor that had any sense of danger; the two most tremendous elements, fire and water, they totally disregard, and defy hurricanes and cannon, as if they were no more than Zephyrs or Catherine-wheels. They have not the same chance of getting away with soldiers from their combats: – a sailor cannot rest one second from fighting till the battle is ended; and a few years’ experience of burning, sinking, bombarding, blasting, and blowing up, – of thunder, lightning, and shipwreck, – ossifies the nerves, or rather changes them into muscles, and renders habit second nature. The sailor, therefore, acquires a constitutional contempt for danger in all its ramifications, while the soldiers’ battles are comparatively quiet, regular transactions, and their generals take themselves carefully out of the fray if they imagine they are getting the worst of it.

I have always, in fact, conceived that the noblest fighting ever invented was a sea battle, and the most intrepid animal in the creation, a British sailor. How far the new lights, in changing their natural rum into hot water, their grog into bohea tea, and their naval dialect into methodistical canting, may increase their courage (which was already ample), is for the projectors to determine. Our naval victories over the whole world proved that no change of liquids was necessary: when any thing cannot be improved, alteration is injurious; and I cannot help thinking that one sailor sending his compliments by a cabin-boy to a brother tar, requesting the “honour of his company to take a dish of tea with him after prayers,” is perfectly ridiculous. God send it may not be worse than ridiculous! – You may man your fleet with saints: but remember, it was the old sinners that gained your victories.

But to recover from one of my usual digressions: I must now advert, though in a very different point of view, to the bravery of attorneys, and exemplify the species of capriciousness I allude to in the person of Mr. T – . There was not another solicitor or practitioner in the four courts of Dublin, who showed more fortitude or downright bravery on all law proceedings. He never was known to flinch at any thing of the kind; would contest a nisi prius from morning till night without sense of danger; and even after a defeat, would sit down at his desk to draw out his bill of costs, with as much sang froid as a French general, in Napoleon’s time, would write despatches upon a drum-head in the midst of action.

Yet, with all this fortitude, he presented a singular example of the anomaly I have alluded to. Nature had given him a set of nerves as strong as chain cables, when used in mooring his clients’ concerns; and it seemed as if he had another and totally different set (of the nature of packthread) for his own purposes. His first set would have answered a sailor, his last a young lady; in plain English, he would sooner lose a good bill of costs, than run a risk of provoking any irritable country gentleman to action. In such cases he was the most mild, bland, and humble antagonist that a debtor could look for. Such (and, I repeat, most judiciously chosen) was the attorney of George Robert Fitzgerald. In person he was under the middle proportion; – and generally buttoned up in a black single-breasted coat, with what was then called a flaxen Beresford bob-wig, and every thing to match. I remember him well, and a neat, smug, sharp, half-century man he was.

This gentleman had been newly engaged by Mr. Fitzgerald to prepare numerous leases for his desperadoes; to serve ejectments on half his reputable tenantry; to do various other acts according to law, with a high hand in the county of Galway; and to go down with him to Turlow, to see that all was duly executed. The several preparations for these things were of a very expensive description, and therefore the attorney would fain have had a little advance toward stamps, office-fees, &c.: but on remotely hinting this, Mr. Fitzgerald replied (with one of those mild, engaging modes of muzzling people in which he was so great a proficient), “Surely, Mr. T – , you don’t doubt my honour and punctuality,” – which kind expression he accompanied by such a look as that wherewith the serpent is said to fascinate its prey.

This expressive glance brought down Mr. T – to the exclamation – “O Lord, Mr. Fitzgerald, doubt your honour! O not at all, sir. I only, Mr. Fitzgerald, only – ”

Here George Robert, with a bland smile, and graceful motion of the hand, told him, “that he need say no more,” and desired him to make out his bill of costs in full, to have it ready receipted, and so soon as they arrived among Mr. Fitzgerald’s tenantry at Turlow, Mr. T – might be assured he’d pay him off entirely without taxing.

Mr. T – was quite charmed, expressed his satisfaction, and declared his readiness to accompany his client to Turlow, after a few days’ preparation in engrossing leases, having one thousand five hundred ejectments filled up, and other preliminaries. “And be so good,” said Mr. Fitzgerald, “to include in your bill, this time, all the expenses of your former journey to Turlow (where I fear you were badly accommodated), as well as what may be due upon every other account. I intend to settle all at once.”

Mr. T – was still more delighted: – all matters were prepared, the bills of costs reckoned, with a full acquittance and discharge for the whole (except the date) at the conclusion, to prevent delay or cavil; all the leases, ejectments, &c. were duly packed in a trunk, and the day fixed for setting out for Turlow; when Mr. Fitzgerald sent for the attorney, and told him, that if his going down was previously known, there were several of the tenants and others, under the adverse influence of his father and brother, who would probably abscond; and that therefore, since spies were watching him perpetually, to give notice in the county of his every movement, it was expedient that he should set out two or three hours before day-break, so as to have the start of them. That his own travelling carriage should be ready near the gate of the Phœnix Park, to take up Mr. T – , who might bring his trunk of papers with him thither in a hack carriage, so that there may be no suspicion.

All this was both reasonable and proper, and accordingly done. Mr. Fitzgerald’s carriage was on the spot named, near the wall of the Phœnix Park. The attorney was punctual; the night pitch-dark; and the trunk of papers put into the boot; the windows were all drawn up; Mr. T – stepped into the carriage with as great satisfaction as ever he had felt in his whole lifetime, and away they drove cheerily, at a good round pace, for the county of Galway.

Mr. T – had no idea that any body else was coming with them – Mr. Fitzgerald not having at all mentioned such a thing. He found, however, a third gentleman in a travelling cloak sitting between himself and his client, who was dozing in the far corner. This stranger, too, he found not over-courteous; for though the carriage was not very roomy, and the gentleman was bulky, he showed no disposition whatever to accommodate the attorney, who begged him, with great suavity and politeness, to “move a little.” To this he received no reply, but a snoring both from the strange traveller and Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. T – now felt himself much crowded and pressed, and again earnestly requested “the gentleman” to allow him, if possible, a little more room: but he still only received a snore in return. He now concluded that his companion was a low, vulgar fellow. His nerves became rather lax: he got alarmed, without well knowing why; he began to twitter – the twitter turned into a shake; and, as is generally the case, the shake ended with a cold sweat, and Mr. T – found himself in a state of mind and body far more disagreeable than he had ever before experienced. The closeness and pressure had elicited a hot perspiration on the one side; while his fears produced a cold perspiration on the other: so that (quite unlike the ague he had not long recovered from) he had hot and cold fits at the same moment. All his apprehensions were now awakened: his memory opened her stores; and he began to recollect dreadful anecdotes of Mr. Fitzgerald, which he never before had credited, or indeed had any occasion to remember. The ruffians of Turlow passed as the ghosts in Macbeth before his imagination. Mr. Fitzgerald he supposed was in a fox’s sleep, and his bravo in another, – who, instead of receding at all, on the contrary squeezed the attorney closer and closer. His respiration now grew impeded, and every fresh idea exaggerated his horror; his surmises were of the most frightful description; his untaxed costs, he anticipated, would prove his certain death, and that a cruel one! neither of his companions would answer him a single question, the one replying only by a rude snore, and the other by a still ruder.

“Now,” thought Mr. T – , “my fate is consummated. I have often heard how Mr. Fitzgerald cut a Jew’s throat in Italy, and slaughtered numerous creditors while on the grand tour of Europe. God help me! unfortunate solicitor that I am! my last day, or rather night, is come!”

He thought to let down the window, and admit a little fresh air, but it was quite fast. The whole situation was insupportable; and at length he addressed Mr. Fitzgerald, most pathetically, thus: “Mr. Fitzgerald, I’ll date the receipt the moment you choose; and whenever it’s your convenience, I have no doubt you’ll pay it most honourably; no doubt, no doubt, Mr. Fitzgerald! but not necessary at all till perfectly convenient– or never, if more agreeable to you, and this other gentleman.”

Fitzgerald could now contain himself no longer, but said, quite in good-humour, “Oh, very well, Mr. T – , very well: quite time enough; make yourself easy on that head.”

The carriage now arrived at Maynooth, where the horses were instantly changed, and they proceeded rapidly on their journey – Mr. Fitzgerald declaring he would not alight till he reached Turlow, for fear of pursuit.

The attorney now took courage, and very truly surmising that the other gentleman was a foreigner, ventured to beg of Mr. Fitzgerald to ask “his friend” to sit over a little, as he was quite crushed.

Mr. Fitzgerald replied, “That the party in question did not speak English; – but when they arrived at Killcock, the matter should be better arranged.”

The attorney was now compelled, for some time longer, to suffer the hot-press, inflicted with as little compunction as if he were only a sheet of paper; but on arriving at the inn at Killcock, dawn just appeared; and Mr. Fitzgerald, letting down a window, desired his servant, who was riding with a pair of large horse-pistols before him, to rouse the people at the inn, and get some cold provisions and a bottle of wine brought to the carriage: “And, Thomas,” said he, “get five or six pounds of raw meat, if you can – no matter of what kind – for this foreign gentleman.”

The attorney was now petrified: – a little twilight glanced into the carriage, and nearly turned him into stone. The stranger was wrapped up in a blue travelling cloak with a scarlet cape, and had a great white cloth tied round his head and under his chin; – but when Mr. Solicitor saw the face of his companion, he uttered a piteous cry, and involuntarily ejaculated, “Murder! murder!” On hearing this cry, the servant rode back to the carriage-window and pointed to his pistols. Mr. T – now offered his soul up to God, the stranger grumbled, and Mr. Fitzgerald, leaning across, put his hand to the attorney’s mouth, and said, he should direct his servant to give him reason for that cry, if he attempted to alarm the people in the house. Thomas went into the inn, and immediately returned with a bottle of wine and some bread, but reported that there was no raw meat to be had – on hearing which, Mr. Fitzgerald ordered him to seek some at another house. The attorney now exclaimed again, “God protect me!” – Streaming with perspiration, his eye every now and then glancing toward his mysterious companion, and then starting aside with horror, he at length shook as if he were relapsing into his old ague; and the stranger, finding so much unusual motion beside him, turned his countenance upon the attorney. Their cheeks came in contact, and the reader must imagine – because it is impossible adequately to describe – the scene that followed. The stranger’s profile was of uncommon prominence; his mouth stretched from ear to ear; he had enormous grinders, with a small twinkling eye; and his visage was all bewhiskered and mustachoed, more even than Count Platoff’s of the Cossacks.