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

BULLETIN EXTRAORDINARY

The author and Counsellor Moore laid by the heels at Rock House – Dismal apprehensions – A recipe and recovery – The races of Castlebar – The author forms a party to visit the spot – Members of the party described – Serjeant Butler and the doctor – Differences of opinion– The serjeant’s bulletin of the famous battle of Castlebar.

After fifteen days of one of the hottest election contests I had ever witnessed, I accompanied my friend, Counsellor Moore, to his aunt’s, (Mrs. Burke of Rock House, Castlebar,) where plenty, hospitality, and the kindest attentions would have soon made amends for our past misfortunes. – But ill luck would not remit so suddenly: – we had both got a Mayo chill on us, from the effects whereof, not even abundance of good claret and hot punch could protect us.

We had retired to rest after a most joyous festivity, when Moore (who had not been two hours in bed) was roused by the excruciating tortures of an inflammation of the stomach; and in less than half an hour after I heard his first groan, I found my own breath rapidly forsaking me; pins and needles seemed to be darting across my chest in all directions, and it was quite clear that another inflammation had taken a fancy to my lungs without giving the slightest notice. I could scarcely articulate, though my pains were not so very great as those of my poor friend: but I lost half the power of respiring, and had not even the consolation of being able to moan so loud as he. This was truly mortifying; but I contrived to thump strongly against the wainscot, which being hollow, proved an excellent conductor. The family took for granted that the house was on fire, or that some thief or ghost had appeared; and, roused up by different conjectures, its members of each sex, age, and rank, quickly rushed into our room screeching, and jostling each other, as they followed the old man-servant, who, with a hatchet in his hand, came on most valiantly. None waited for the ceremony of the toilet; but approached just as they had quitted their couches – not even a “blanket” being “in the alarm of fear caught up.”

The first follower of the old footman was a fat cook of Mrs. Burke’s, Honor O’Maily, who, on learning the cause of the uproar, immediately commenced clearing herself from any suspicion of poisoning; and cursing herself, without any reservation as to saints and devils, if the victuals, as she dressed them, were not sweet, good, and right wholesome: her pepper and salt, she vowed, had been in the house a fortnight before, and both the fritters and pancakes were fried in her own drippings!

Honor’s exculpatory harangue being with some difficulty silenced, a hundred antidotes were immediately suggested: Mrs. Burke, an excellent woman, soon found a receipt at the end of her cookery book for curing all manner of poisons (for they actually deemed us poisoned), either in man or beast; and the administration of this recipe was approved by one Mr. Dennis Shee, another family domestic, who said “he had been pysoned himself with some love-powders by a young woman who wanted to marry him, and was cured by the very same stuff the mistress was going to make up for the counsellors; but that any how he would run off for the doctor, who to be sure knew best about the matter.”

It was now fully agreed, that some of Denis Brown’s voters had got the poison from a witch at Braefield,24 out of spite, and all the servants cried out that there was no luck or grace for any real gentleman in that quarter from the time George Robert was hanged.

Poor Mrs. Burke was miserable on every account, since the story of “two counsellors being poisoned at Rock House” would be such a stain on the family.

Being raised up in my bed against pillows, I began to think my complaint rather spasmodic than inflammatory, as I breathed better apace, and felt myself almost amused by the strange scenes going on around. Mrs. Burke had now prepared her antidote. Oil, salt, soapsuds, honey, vinegar, and whisky, were the principal ingredients. Of these, well shaken up in a quart bottle, she poured part down her nephew’s throat (he not being able to drink it out of a bowl), much as farriers drench a horse; and as soon as the first gulp was down, she asked poor Moore if he felt any easier. He answered her question only by pushing back the antidote, another drop of which he absolutely refused to touch. She made a second effort to drench him, lest it might be too late; but ere any thing more could be done, the doctor, or rather apothecary and man-midwife, arrived, when bleeding, blistering, &c. &c. were had recourse to, and on the third day I was totally recovered; my poor friend got better but slowly, and after two dangerous relapses.

The incidents which had taken place in Castlebar during the French invasion, three years before, were too entertaining not to be pried into (now I was upon the spot) with all my zeal and perseverance. The most curious of battles, which was fought there, had always excited my curiosity; I was anxious to discover what really caused so whimsical a defeat. But so extremely did the several narratives I heard vary – from the official bulletin to the tale of the private soldier, that I found no possible means of deciding on the truth but by hearing every story, and striking an average respecting their veracity, which plan, together with the estimate of probabilities, might, perhaps, bring me pretty near the true state of the affair. There had certainly been a battle and flight more humorous in their nature and result than any that had ever before been fought or accomplished by a British army; neither powder, ball, nor bayonet had fair claim to the victory; but to a single true blunder was attributable that curious defeat of our pampered army – horse, foot, and artillery, – in half an hour, by a handful of half-starved Frenchmen. So promptly (as I heard) was it effected, that the occurrence was immediately named – and I suppose it still retains the appellation – “The races of Castlebar.” I cannot vouch for any single piece of information I acquired; but I can repeat some of the best of it; and my readers may strike the average as I do, and form their own conclusions on the subject. At all events, the relation may amuse them; and, as far as the detail of such an event can possibly do, afford a glance at French and Irish, civil and military, high and low, aristocracy and plebeians: – undoubtedly proving that, after a battle is over, it suggests the simile of a lady after her baby is born – what was a cause of great uneasiness soon becomes a source of great amusement.

To attain this, my laudable object, the first thing I had to do was, as far as practicable, to fancy myself a general; and in that capacity, to ascertain the errors by which the battle was lost, and the conduct of the enemy after their victory. Experientia docet; and by these means I might obviate the same disaster on any future occasion. In pursuance of this fanciful hypothesis, my primary step was, of course, to reconnoitre the position occupied by our troops and those of the enemy on that engagement; and in order to do this with effect, I took with me a very clever man, a serjeant of the Kilkenny militia, who had been trampled over by Chapman’s heavy horse in their hurry to get off, and left with half his bones broken, to recover as well as he could. He afterward returned to Castlebar, where he married, and continued to reside. An old surgeon was likewise of our party, who had been with the army, and had (as he informed me) made a most deliberate retreat when he saw the rout begin. He described the whole affair to me, being, now and then, interrupted and “put in,” as the corporal called it, when he was running out of the course, or drawing the long-bow. Three or four country fellows (who, it proved, had been rebels), wondering what brought us three together, joined the group; and, on the whole, I was extremely amused.

The position shown me, as originally held by the defeated, seemed, to my poor civil understanding, one of the most difficult in the world to be routed out of. Our army was drawn up on a declivity of steep, rugged ground, with a narrow lake at its foot, at the right whereof was a sort of sludge-bog, too thick to swim in, and too thin to walk upon – snipes alone, as they said, having any fixed residence in, or lawful claim to it. On the other side of the lake, in front of our position, was a hill covered with underwood, and having a winding road down its side. In our rear was the town of Castlebar, and divers stone walls terminated and covered our left. None of my informants could agree either as to the number of our troops or cannon; they all differed even to the extent of thousands of men, and from four to twenty pieces of cannon. Every one of the parties, too, gave his own account in his own way. One of the rebels swore, that “though he had nothing but ‘this same little switch’ (a thick cudgel) in his fist, he knocked four or five troopers off their beasts, as they were galloping over himself, till the French gentlemen came up and skivered them; and when they were once down, the ‘devil a much life’ was long left in them.”

“Were you frightened, Mr. O’Donnell?” said I (he told me that was his name).

“By my sowl!” replied O’Donnell, who seemed a decent sort of farmer, “if you had been in it that same day, your honour would have had no great objections to be out of it agin.”

“Now,” said I, “pray, Serjeant Butler, how came the Kilkenny to run away that day so soon and with so little reason?”

“Becaize we were ordered to run away,” answered the serjeant.

“How can you say that, serjeant?” said the doctor. “I was myself standing bolt upright at the left of the Kilkenny when they ran without any order.”

“O yes, indeed! to be sure, doctor!” said Serjeant Butler; “but were you where I was when Captain Millar the aidycam ordered us off in no time?”

“He did not,” replied the doctor.

“Why, then, since you make me curse, by J – s he did; becaize the officers afterward all said, that when he ordered us off, he forgot half what he had to say to us.”

“And pray, what was the other half, serjeant?” inquired I.

“Ah, then, I’ll tell you that, counsellor,” replied Butler. “That same aidycam was a fat, bloated gentleman, and they said he was rather thick-winded like a beast, when his mind was not easy: so he comes up (my lord was looking at the fight, and did not mind him), and he kept puffing and blowing away while he was ordering us, till he came to the words, ‘you’ll get off,’ or ‘you’ll advance backwards,’ or some words of the same kind, I can’t exactly say what; – but it seems, when he desired us to make off, he forgot to say ‘thirty yards,’ as the officers told us at Tuam was the general’s word of command: – and as he desired us to make off, but didn’t order us when to stop, by my sowl some of us never stopped or stayed for thirty good miles, and long miles too, only to get a drink of water or halt a noggin of whisky, if there was any in the alehouse. And sorry enough we were, and sore likewise! – Then there was that Chapman and his heavy horse; troth I believe every horse in the place cantered over us as if we were sods of turf. Bad luck to their sowls! many a poor Kilkenny lad couldn’t get out of their way while they were making off, and so they tumbled over the Kilkenny themselves, and all were tumbling and rolling together, and the French were coming on to stick us; and we were trampled and flattened in the dust, so that you’d hardly know a corpse from a sheet of brown paper, only for the red coat upon it.”

The doctor now attempted to tell the story in his way, when the Kilkenny serjeant, being at length a little provoked at the other’s numerous interruptions and contradictions, exclaimed, “Arrah! doctor, be asy; it’s I can tell the counsellor, for it’s I that was in it, and almost kilt too; and that’s more than you were, barring with the fright!”

The doctor gave him a look of sovereign contempt, and me a significant wink, as much as to say, “the fellow is mad, and drunk into the bargain.”

However, the serjeant conquered all opposition, and proceeded to give me the full narrative, in his own dialect. “Counsellor,” said he, “do you know that Chapman – so I think they called him – is as tall as any May-pole?”

“Very well,” said I.

“Well,” said the serjeant, “on the spot near the bog, where the devil could not get at us without drying it first and foremost – there we were drawn up at first, all so neat and tight on the ridge there, one would think us like iron rails, every lad of us. Very well; being firm and fast as aforesaid on the ridge, with the shaking bog by the side of the Chapman’s– bad cess to them, man and beast! – Oh! it was not most agreeable when the French let fly at us without giving us the least notice in life; and by my sowl, they hit some of the boys of our regiment, and that same set them a roaring and calling for a drink of water and the doctor! but the devil a doctor was in it; (can you deny that same?) and his honour, Lord Ormond, our colonel, grew red in the face with anger, or something or other, when he heard the boys bawling for water, and good reason they had, for by my sowl they were kilt sure enuff. So we leathered at the French across the water, and the French leathered at us likewise. Devil such a cracking ever you heard, counsellor, as on that day; and by the same token it would make a dog laugh to see how Captain Shortall with his cannons let fly at the French out of the bushes; and by my sowl, they were not idle either! So, we were all fighting mighty well, as I heard General Lake say in the rear of us; and as I looked round and took off my cap to hurra, I heard the devils roar at my elbow, and saw my poor comrade, Ned Dougherty, staggering back for all the world just as if he was drunk, and the devil a nose on his face any more than on the back of my hand, counsellor, the present minute: and on a second glance at poor Ned, I saw one of his eyes not a whit better off than his nose; – so I called as loud as I could for a doctor, but the devil a one showed.”

The doctor could stand the imputation no longer, and immediately gave the retort not courteous to the serjeant.

“Why, then, do you hear that?” said the serjeant, quite coolly. “Arrah! now, how can you say you were in it? When Ned Dougherty was kilt, you know you were sitting behind the cannon; and the devil a bit of you would have been seen while the powder was going, if the nose was off the general, let alone Ned Dougherty.”

I feared much that my whole inquiries would be frustrated by the increase of this dispute, when one of the country fellows who was by, said, “You’re right enuff, serjeant. It was myself and two boys more, after yees all ran away, that pulled the doctor from under a cart; but we let him go, becaize he towld us he had ten childer and a wife, who would crack her heart if she thought he was slaughtered; – and that’s the truth, and nothing else – though the devil a wife or child ever ye had, doctor.”

I now winked at the doctor not to mind the fellows, and requested the serjeant to go on with the battle.

“And welcome, counsellor,” said he: “stay, where did I leave off? O! ay, at Ned Dougherty’s nose: – very well, poor Ned wasn’t kilt dead; only lost his nose and eye, and is very comfortable now, as he says, in Kilmainham. Very well, as I was saying, we went on slashing away like devils across the water, when, by my sowl, I heard some cracks up at the left of us, and the balls began to whiz all across us, lengthways. ‘What the deuce is this job?’ says I. ‘D – mme if I know,’ said the serjeant-major; – when Captain Millar, the general’s aidycam, comes up full pelt, and orders us to get off as aforesaid. When we heard that same order, we thought we were fairly beat; and so, losing no time, set off as hard as we could to get into Castlebar town again ere the French could take it before us. And then, Chapman’s people, bad chance to them, cried out, ‘Get on! get on!’ and galloped away as if the devil was under their tails, and no more minded the Kilkenny than if we were Norway rats, trampling us up and down, and some of them tumbling over our carcases. You’d think it was a race-course: my ribs were all knocked in, and my collar-bone broken; and – and – that’s all I know, counsellor.”

“Is that all, serjeant?” asked I.

“O no, counsellor,” replied he. “I have more to tell, now I think of it. Every boy in our regiment declared, if it had been Hutchinson that commanded us, the devil a one would run away if he stayed till this time, or go to the French either; but all the lads used to say afterward, ‘Why should we fight under Lake, (whom we neither knew nor cared to know,) when we had our own brave country general to the fore, that we’d stick by till death?’ and I forgot to tell you, counsellor – a hundred or so of our boys who could not run fast, thought it better to stay quiet and easy with the French than be murdered without the least reason imaginable; and so they stayed and were treated very handsome: only owld Corney hanged a good many of the poor boys at Ballynamuck; and the devil a bit better is Ireland made by hanging any body – and that’s the truth, and nothing else! Faith, if they hanged a quarter of us all, another quarter would be wanting it against the next assizes. So, what use is hanging the boys? Little good will it ever do the remainder!”

BREAKFASTS AT BALLINROBE

Election for County Mayo – Author and Counsellor Moore at Ballinrobe – Mr. Dan Martin’s “little paved parlour” – Preparations for a festive breakfast – A formidable incursion – Counsellor Moore laid prostrate – Advance of the foe – The two barristers take up an elevated position – Disappearance of the various eatables – General alarm – Dislodgment of the enemy – Mr. Dan Martin’s comments upon the “affair” —Secrets worth Knowing – All’s Well that Ends Well.

The following is almost too trifling an anecdote to be recorded; but, as it characterises place, time, and people, and is besides of a novel description, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of relating it. The period at which it occurred was that of the Mayo election alluded to in the last sketch.

After some days of hard labour, bad food, worse wine, and no tranquillity, Mr. Martin (I think that was his name), the owner of an alehouse in our interest, told us with great glee, he had got in a few loaves of good white bread and a paper of tea from Castlebar, fit for the chancellor – together with fresh eggs and new milk; and that if we would vouchsafe to put up with his own “little paved parlour,” we should have a roaring fire, capital buttered toast, and, in short, every thing to our satisfaction, one meal any how; it was God’s curse and a thousand pities he had nothing better for the “dear counsellors;” but there was to be a fine slip of a pig killed in the town that night by a friend of his own, and we might have a beautiful griskin next morning broiled to our liking.

My friend Moore and I were delighted at the announcement of a comfortable breakfast (for some time a stranger to us), and immediately went into the little paved parlour, where every thing was soon in full array according to Mr. Daniel Martin’s promises. The turf fire glowed fit to roast an ox; abundance of hot buttered toast was quickly placed before it; plenty of new-laid eggs appeared – some boiled, some poached; a large saucepan with hot water was bubbling on the ashes; our tea was made (as the tea-pot leaked) in a potsheen-jug; and every thing appeared in the most proper state to feast two lately half-fed Dublin barristers (as they called us). My mouth watered, Moore licked his lips, and we never sat down to the sensual enjoyment of the palate with more goût or satisfaction than in Mr. Martin’s “little paved parlour.”

It seemed as if nothing short of an earthquake (perhaps not even that) could have disappointed us. But I do not recollect any incident during a long life so completely verifying the old aphorism of “Many a slip between the cup and the lip.” During our happy state of anticipation, rather a loud rap was heard: – I was just in the act of cracking the shell of an egg, with my back to the door, and cried out, “Come in! come in!” Nobody entered; but another and still louder rap succeeded. My friend, not being at that instant so busily occupied as I, stepped to the door, with the purpose of telling whoever it might be to “call again” in half an hour. I meanwhile proceeded with my egg; when I heard Moore, who was not in the habit of using imprecations, cry out piteously, “Oh! blood and oons!” and his exclamation was accompanied by a crash that alarmed me. On turning rapidly round, to aid him in any possible emergency, I saw my companion extended on the floor, his heels kicked up in the air, and eight or ten young pigs making the best of their way over the counsellor’s prostrate body with great vivacity. Their mother, with divers deep and savage grunts, snorting, and catching the air through her enormous proboscis, took her way round the other side of the room, and effectually cut us off both from the door and our weapons on the breakfast-table. This manœuvre certainly would have daunted much greater heroes than either of us pretended to be; and I doubt if there is a field-marshal in the service either of his Britannic or Most Christian Majesty who would have felt himself quite at ease under similar circumstances.

We had no retreat: the foe had anticipated us, and appeared both able and willing to slaughter us for the sake of her progeny. “Mount, Moore,” said I. He limped, for his leg was hurt, to a high old-fashioned chest of drawers, which fortunately stood in a corner. Upon these drawers each of us got, and thence watched ulterior operations, but by no means considering ourselves out of danger from so frightful an enemy.

That the reader who has not been accustomed to associate with swine at Ballinrobe may form a just idea of our situation, he shall be made accurately acquainted with the species of lady visitor we had to deal with. The eight or ten childer were what we call “piggin riggins,” too old for a dainty and too young for bacon – the “hobble-de-hoys” of swinehood. Their mother literally “towered above her sex,” and was the lankiest and most bristly sow I ever beheld. Her high arched back, taller than a donkey’s, springing from the abutments of her loins and shoulders, resembled a coarse rustic bridge; her dangling teats swept the ground; long loose flabby ears nearly concealed a pair of small fiery blood-shot sunken eyes, and their ends just covered one half of a mouth which, dividing her head as it were into an upper and under story, clearly showed that she had the means of taking what bite she pleased out of any thing. Her tusks, indeed, like a boar’s, peeped under her broad and undulating nostrils, which were decorated with an iron ring and hook, that appeared to afford the double power of defending the wearer against assaults and hooking in an enemy.

Of such a description was the family that paid us this unwelcome visit, demonstrating thereby the uncertainty of all sublunary expectations. The fact was, that the lady, with ten of her childer, had been wallowing in the quagmire by the side of our parlour-window, which we had opened to give a part of the captive smoke an opportunity of escaping – but which at the same time let out the savoury perfume of our repast; this entering piggy’s sensitive nostrils, she was roused to action, and, grunting to her family as a trumpeter sounds “to horse,” they made their way to the well-known door of the little paved parlour, which finding closed (a very unusual circumstance), madam’s temper was somewhat ruffled, and the catastrophe ensued. Ceremony from a sow, under such circumstances, could not be reasonably looked for, and any delay in disposing of our luxuries was still less to be expected. In her haste to accomplish that achievement, she had on gaining admittance run between the legs of Counsellor Thomas Moore, and, as on an inclined plane, she first raised, then deposited him upon the pavement; and leaving him to the discretion of her piggin riggins, changed her own course to our breakfast-table, which having duly overset, the whole was at her mercy – of which, however, she showed none; – the toast, the bread, the eggs – in short, every thing, disappearing in marvellous quick time.