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

The two counsellors, from their elevated position, beheld the destruction of all these comforts, and congratulated themselves on the good luck of being personally out of danger: but here also we “reckoned without our host:” we entertained no doubt of madam sow’s peaceable departure, and did not wish to expose ourselves to the ridicule of being discovered perched upon a chest of drawers. One of the piggins, however, not content with the prey he had already got, in roaming about for more, and unaccustomed to boiling water, happened to overset the large saucepan which was steaming upon the hob, and which descended full on his unseasoned hide. Hereupon, feeling his tender bristles getting loose, and at the first scratch coming away with a due quantity of scarf-skin to keep them together, he set up the most dreadful cries I ever heard, even from the most obstinate of his race when the butcher was taking the preliminary steps towards manufacturing corned pork – that comrade of pease-pudding, and glory of the British navy!

The mamma of course attributed the cries of her darling to some torture inflicted by the Christians upon the drawers; to the foot of which she therefore trotted, and with deep and loud grunts looked up at us, opening her wide jaws, and seeming to say, “I wish I had you both down here, and my dear little piggin riggins should soon be revenged for your cruelty!” I thought that, once or twice, she appeared disposed to try if she could balance her body on her hind-legs and rear up against the chest of drawers; in which case, even if her jaws did not clearly take hold of us, the strong iron hook in her nose would be sure to catch and hawl down one or other by the leg – as, if once hooked, it would only be a trial of strength between the sow’s snout and the tendon Achilles of either counsellor. We could not kick at her for fear of the same hook; so we kept dancing and stamping, to try if that would deter her. But she was too much bent on mischief to care for our defensive operations; and we were ultimately obliged to resort to that step generally taken by people when they find themselves failing in point of fortitude, and manfully cried out – “Murder! murder!” But as no one came, Moore said they were so used to that cry in Ballinrobe (and particularly in the “little paved parlour”), that the people never minded it; so we changed our tone, and roared “Fire! fire!”

In a second the entire population of the house was in the room, when an éclaircissement took place. Still, however, the lady would not beat a retreat: – sticks, flails, handles of rakes, and pitchforks, belaboured her in vain; she minded them no more than straws. At length, they seized hold of her tail: – this action seemed to make her imagine that it was desired to detain her in the room; upon which, that spirit of contradiction inherent in more animals than one, determined her to go out. She accordingly rushed off, followed by the whole brood, and we saw no more of her or her hopeful family.

After they were gone, it took Mr. Martin above five minutes to lavish on the sow and piggin riggins every imprecation his vocabulary could furnish; and he concluded thus: – “Ough! May the curse of Crummell light on yee, for a greedy owld sow as you are! yee need not have taken such trouble to cater for your childer. If they had just peeped up the chimney, they’d have seen their father as well dried and smoked as any boar that ever was kilt in Ballinrobe these two years, any how; and by my sowl I expect to have six of the childer along with him by next Michaelmas, at latest.”

All being now arranged, we begged Mr. Martin to replenish our board as quickly as possible. Daniel, however, looked grave and chop-fallen, and in two monosyllables apprised us of the extent of our misfortunes. “I can’t,” said he.

“Why?” we both asked in a breath.

“Oh, holy poker!” exclaimed Mr. Dan Martin, “what shall I do to feed yee, counsellors dear! By my sowl, Sir Neil will skiver me! Devil a bit or sup more I have in this same house. Arrah! Mary! Mary!”

“What’s that, avourneen?” said Mary, entering.

“What have you in the house, Mary?” demanded the landlord.

“Ough! the devil a taste was left from the Newport voters, barring what we kept for the counsellors.”

“And have you literally nothing, Mr. Martin?” demanded we.

“All as one,” was the reply. “Sir Neil’s men got the last of the meat; and a minute or two ago, who should come in – devil’s cure to him! but Denis Brown Sallough’s body-sarvant, and pretended, the villain, that he was Sir Neil’s man; and he bought all the rest of the bread and tay for ready money. If I had thought, counsellors, of the incivility my sow put on yees – bad luck to her sowl, egg and bird! – I’d have seen Denis Brown Sallough’s body-sarvant carded like a tithe proctor25 before I’d have sold him as much as would fill a hollow tooth – and by my sowl he has plenty of them, counsellors dear!”

“Have you no eggs, Mr. Martin?”

“Why, plase your honour, it’s not two hours since the high sheriff’s cook (as he called himself) came and took every cock and hen I had in the world (he paid like a gentleman, to be sure), for he has a great dinner to-day, and being disappointed of poultry, he kilt every mother’s babe of mine, gentlemen.”

“You have milk?”

“I’d have plenty of that stuff, counsellors, only (oh my poor cow, and the three heifers!) Sir Neil’s voters are generally so dry, and by my sowl, I believe not far from hungry either, that they, five or six times a day if they can, get a drink out of the poor animals. They have been milked, indeed, till their teats are raw, gentlemen, and that’s the truth, and nothing else but the true truth.” Recollecting himself, however, he added – “But, counsellors, dear, if your honours can put up with our own little breakfast, you’ll be more welcome nor the flowers of May, and there will be plenty of that, gentlemen, such as it is, and I’ll tell you what it is. First and foremost, there’s no better than the apple pratees, and they are ready hot and smothering for ourselves and that d – ’d sow and her childer, and be cursed to them! but the devil a one they will get this day, for affronting yees, gentlemen! – And next to the pratees, there’s the potsheen. I still’d it myself a year ago, and hid it under ground when the elections came on; but I get a bottle or two out always. And then, gentlemen, I can broil for you (but that’s a secret, plase your honours,) a few beautiful rashers out of the two flitches I have hid on a little shelf up the chimney for fear of the two-guinea freeholders; – it’s more like clear horn nor bacon, counsellors dear,” pursued he, hauling down a side of it as he spoke, and cutting out several large rashers.

“I suppose,” said I, “this is some of your good sow’s family; – if so, I shall have great pleasure in paying her off in her own style?”

“Why, then, counsellor,” said Mr. Martin, laughing and rubbing his hands – “you are the very devil at finding out things! – ha! ha! – By my sowl, it is a sister of the said sow’s, sure enuff – bad luck to the whole breed for eating the buttered toast this blessed morning!”

The result was, that we got rashers, potatoes, and potsheen, for our breakfast; at the end of which Mr. Martin brought in a jug of capital home-brewed ale; – and the possession of this, also, he said was a secret, or the gauger would play the deuce with him. We fared, in a word, very well; I much doubt, to speak truth, if it were not a more appropriate meal for a desperate bad day and much hard work than a lady’s teapot would afford; and, in pursuance of this notion, I had a rasher, potatoe, and draught of good ale, every day afterward during my stay at that abominable election.

English people would hardly credit the circumstances attending an electioneering contest in Ireland, so late as twenty-three years ago. Little attention was then paid by the country gentlemen to their several assize towns; and there was not a single respectable inn at Ballinrobe. Somebody indeed had built the shell of an hotel; but it had not been plastered either within or without, or honoured by any species of furniture: it had not indeed even banisters to the stairs.

Perhaps the time of year and desperate state of the weather (uncheckered by one ray of sunshine) tended to disgust me with the place: but I certainly never in my lifetime was so annoyed as at the election of Ballinrobe, though every thing that could possibly be done for our comfort was done by Sir John Brown – than whom I never met any gentleman more friendly or liberal.

NEW MODE OF SERVING A PROCESS

The author at Rock House – Galway election —Searching for voters – Mr. Ned Bodkin – Interesting conversation between him and the author – Process-serving at Connemara – Burke, the bailiff – His hard treatment – Irish method of discussing a chancery bill – Ned Bodkin’s “Lament” – False oaths, and their disastrous consequences – Country magistrates in Ireland.

The election for County Galway was proceeding whilst I was refreshing myself at Rock House, Castlebar, after various adventures at Ballinrobe – as already mentioned. I met at Rock House an old fellow who told me his name was Ned Bodkin, a Connemara boy; and that he had come with two or three other lads only to search for voters to take to Galway for Squire Martin’s poll. Bodkin came to Mrs. Burke’s house to consult Counsellor Moore, and I determined to have a full conversation with him as to the peninsula of Connemara and its statistics. He sent off eight or nine freeholders (such as they were) in eight-and-forty hours; they were soon polled for the squire, and came back as happy as possible.

I asked Mr. Bodkin where he lived.

“Ah! then where should it be but at Connemara?” said he.

“And what’s your trade or calling, when you’re at home, Mr. Bodkin?” inquired I.

“Why, plase your honour, no poor man could live upon one calling now-a-days as we did in owld times, or no calling at all, as when the squire was in it. Now I butchers a trifle, your honour! and burns the kelp when I’m entirely idle. Then I take a touch now and then at the still, and smuggle a few in Sir Neil’s cutter when the coast is clear.”

“Any thing else, Mr. Bodkin?”

“Ough yes, your honour; ’tis me that tans the brogue leather for the colonel’s yeomen: (God bless them!) besides, I’m bailiff-bum of the town lands, and make out our election registries; and when I’ve nothing else to do, I keep the squire’s accounts: and by my sowl that same is no asy matter, plase your honour, till one’s used to it! but, God bless him, up and down, wherever he goes, here or hereafter! he’s nothing else but a good master to us all.”

“Mr. Ned Bodkin,” continued I, “every body says the king’s writ does not run in Connemara?”

“Ough! then whoever towld your honour that is a big liar. By my sowl, when the King George’s writ (crossing himself) comes within smell of the big house, the boys soon make him run as if the seven red devils was under his tail, saving your presence. It’s King George’s writ that does run at Connemara, plase your worship, all as one as a black greyhound. O the devil a stop he stays till he gets into the court-house of Galway again!”

Mr. Bodkin talked allegorically, so I continued in the same vein: – “And pray if you catch the king’s writ, what do you do then?”

“Plase your honour, that story is asy towld. Do, is it? I’ll tell your honour that. Why, if the prossy-sarver is cotched in the territories of Ballynahinch, by my sowl if the squire’s not in it, he’ll either eat his parchments every taste, or go down into the owld coal-pit sure enuff, whichever is most agreeable to the said prossy-sarver.”

“And I suppose he generally prefers eating his parchments?” said I.

“Your honour’s right enuff,” replied Mr. Bodkin. “The varment generally gulps it down mighty glib; and, by the same token, he is seldom or ever obstrepulous enuff to go down into the said coal-pit.”

“Dry food, Mr. Bodkin,” said I.

“Ough! by no manner of manes, your honour. We always give the prossy-sarver, poor crethur! plenty to moisten his said food with and wash it down well, any how; and he goes back to the ’sizes as merry as a water-dog, and swears (God forgive him!) that he was kilt at Connemara by people unknown; becaize if he didn’t do that, he knows well enuff he’d soon be kilt dead by people he did know, and that’s the truth, plase your honour, and nothing else.”

“Does it often happen, Mr. Bodkin?” said I.

“Ough! plase your honour, only that our own bailiffs and yeomen soldiers keep the sheriffs’ officers out of Connemara, we’d have a rookery of them afore every ’sizes and sessions, when the master’s amongst the Sassanachs in London city. We made one lad, when the master was in said foreign parts, eat every taste of what he towld us was a chancellor’s bill, that he brought from Dublin town to sarve in our quarter. We laid in ambush, your honour, and cotched him on the bridge; but we did not throw him over that, though we made believe that we would. ‘We have you, you villain!’ said I. ‘Spare my life!’ says he. ‘What for?’ said I. ‘Oh! give me marcy!’ says the sarver. ‘The devil a taste,’ said I. ‘I’ve nothing but a chancellor’s bill,’ said he. ‘Out with it,’ says I. So he ups, and outs with his parchment, plase your honour: – by my sowl, then, there was plenty of that same!

“‘And pray, what name do you go by when you are at home?’ said I. ‘Oh then, don’t you know Burke the bum?’ said he. ‘Are you satisfied to eat it, Mr. Burke?’ said I. ‘If I was as hungry as twenty hawks, I could not eat it all in less than a fortnight any how,’ said the sarver, ‘it’s so long and crisp.’ ‘Never fear,’ said I.

“‘Why shu’dn’t I fear?’ said he.

“‘What’s that to you?’ said I. ‘Open your mouth, and take a bite, if you plase.’ ‘Spare my life!’ said he. ‘Take a bite, if you plase, Mr. Burke,’ again said I.

“So he took a bite, plase your honour; but I saw fairly it was too dry and tough for common eating, so I and the rest of the boys brought the bum to my little cabin, and we soaked the chancellor in potsheen in my little keg, and I towld him he should stay his own time till he eat it all as soon as it was tinder, and at three meals a day, with every other little nourishment we could give the crethur. So he stayed very agreeable till he had finished the chancellor’s bill every taste, and was drunk with it every day twice, at any rate; and then I towld him he might go back to Galway town and welcome. But he said he’d got kinder treatment and better liquor nor ever the villain of a sub-sheriff gave any poor fellow, and if I’d let him, he’d fain stay another day or two to bid us good bye. ‘So, Mary,’ said I to the woman my wife, ‘’commodate the poor officer a day or two more to bid us good bye.’ – ‘He’s kindly welcome,’ says she. So Burke stayed till the ’sizes was over, and then swore he lay for dead on the road-side, and did not know what became of the chancellor’s bill, or where it was deposited at said time. I had towld him, your honour, I’d make good his oath for him; and, accordingly, we made him so drunk, that he lay all as one as a dead man in the ditch till we brought him home, and then he said he could kiss the holy ’pistle and gospel safe in the court-house, that he lay for dead in a ditch by reason of the treatment he got at Connemara; and Mr. Burke turned out a good fellow; and the devil a prossy-sarver ever came into Connemara for a year after, but he sent a gossoon aforehand to tell us where we’d cotch the sarver afore sarvice. Oh! God rest your sowl, Bum Burke, and deliver it safe! it’s us that were sorry enuff when we heard the horse kilt you dead – oh bad cess to him! the likes of ye didn’t come since to our quarter.”

This mode of making process-servers eat the process was not at all confined to Connemara. I have myself known it practised often at the colliery of Doonan, the estate of my friend Hartpole, when his father Squire Robert was alive. It was quite the custom; and if a person in those times took his residence in the purlieus of that colliery, serving him with any legal process was entirely out of the question; for if a bailiff attempted it, he was sure to have either a meal of sheepskin or a dive in a coal-pit, for his trouble.

This species of outrage was, however, productive of greater evil than merely making the process-server eat his bill. Those whose business it was to serve processes in time against the assizes, being afraid to fulfil their missions, took a short cut, and swore they had actually served them, though they had never been on the spot; – whereby many a judgment was obtained surreptitiously, and executed on default upon parties who had never heard one word of the business: – and thus whole families were ruined by the perjury of one process-server.

The magistrates were all country gentlemen, very few of whom had the least idea of law proceedings further than when they happened to be directed against themselves; and the common fellows, when sworn on the holy Evangelists, conceived they could outwit the magistrates by kissing their own thumb, which held the book, instead of the cover of it; or by swearing, “By the vartue of my oath it’s through (true), your worship!” (putting a finger through a button-hole.)

So numerous were the curious acts and anecdotes of the Irish magistrates of those days, that were I to recite many of them, the matter-of-fact English (who have no idea of Irish freaks of this nature) would, I have no doubt, set me down as a complete romancer.

I conceived it would much facilitate the gratification of my desire to learn the customs of the Irish magisterial justices by becoming one myself. I therefore took out my didimus at once for every county in Ireland; and being thus a magistrate for thirty-two counties, I of course, wherever I went, learned all their doings; and I believe no body of men ever united more authority and less law than did the Irish justices of thirty years since.

DONNYBROOK FAIR

Donnybrook contrasted with St. Bartholomew’s – Characteristics of the company resorting to each fair – Site upon which the former is held – Description and materials of a Donnybrook tent – Various humours of the scene – The horse fair – Visit of the author and Counsellor Byrne in 1790 – Barter and exchange – The “gentle Coadjutor” – The “master cobbler” – A head in chancery – Disastrous mishap of Counsellor Byrne – Sympathy therewith of the author and his steed – The cobbler and his companion – An extrication – Unexpected intruders – Counsellor Byrne and his doctor – A glance at the country fairs of Ireland – Sir Hercules Langreish and Mr. Dundas – Dysart fair – The fighting factions – Various receipts for picking a quarrel – Recent civilization of the lower classes of Emeralders.

The fair of Donnybrook, near Dublin, has been long identified with the name and character of the lower classes of Irish people; and so far as the population of its metropolis may fairly stand for that of a whole country, the identification is just. This remark applies, it is true, to several years back; as that entire revolution in the natural Irish character, which has taken place within my time, must have extended to all their sports and places of amusement; and Donnybrook fair, of course, has had its full share in the metamorphosis.

The old Donnybrook fair, however, is on record; and so long as the name exists, will be duly appreciated. Mr. Lysight’s popular song of “The Sprig of Shillelah and Shamrock so Green,”26 gives a most lively sketch of that celebrated meeting – some of the varieties and peculiarities of which may be amusing, and will certainly give a tolerable idea of the Dublin commonalty in the eighteenth century.

All Ireland is acquainted with the sort of sports and recreations which characterise Donnybrook. But the English, in general, are as ignorant of an Irish fair as they are of every other matter respecting the “sister kingdom,” and that is saying a great deal. John Bull, being the most egotistical animal of the creation, measures every man’s coat according to his own cloth, and fancying an Irish mob to be like a London rabble, thinks that Donnybrook fair is composed of all the vice, robbery, swindling, and spectacle – together with still rougher manners of its own – of his dear St. Bartholomew.

Never was John more mistaken. I do not know any one trait of character conspicuous alike in himself and brother Pat, save that which is their common disgrace and incentive to all other vices, drinking; and even in drunkenness the English far surpass Pat – though perhaps their superiority in this respect may be attributable merely to their being better able to purchase the poison; and if they have not the means ready, they are far more expert at picking of pockets, burglary, or murder, to procure them – as Mr. John Ketch (operative at his majesty’s gaol of Newgate in London) can bear ample testimony.

There is no doubt but all mobs are tumultuous, violent, and more or less savage (no matter what they meet about): it is the nature of democratic congregations so to be. Those of England are thoroughly wicked, and, when roused, most ferocious; but they show little genuine courage, and a few soldiers by a shot or two generally send thousands of fellows scampering, to adjourn sine die. Formerly, I never saw an Irish mob that could not easily be rendered tractable and complacent by persons who, as they conceived, intended them fairly and meant to act kindly by them. So much waggery and fun ever mingled with their most riotous adventures, that they were not unfrequently dispersed by a good-humoured joke, when it would probably have required a regiment and the reading of a dozen riot acts to do it by compulsion.

A long, erroneous system of ruling that people seems to have gradually, and at length definitively, changed the nature of the Irish character in every class and branch of the natives, and turned into political agitation what I remember only a taste for simple hubbub. The Irish have an indigenous goût for fighting, (of which they never can be divested,) quite incomprehensible to a sober English farmer, whose food and handiwork are as regular as his clock. At Donnybrook, the scene had formerly no reservation as to the full exhibition of genuine Hibernian character; and a description of one of the tents of that celebrated sporting fair will answer nearly for all of them, and likewise give a tolerable idea of most other fairs in the Emerald island at the same period. Having twice27 run a narrow risk of losing my life at Donnybrook, (the last time at its fair in 1790,) I am entitled to remember its localities at least as well as any gentleman who never was in danger of ending his days there.

The site of the fair is a green flat of no great extent, about a mile from Dublin city, and on the banks of a very shallow stream that runs dribbling under a high bridge: – fancy irregular houses on one side, and a highroad through the middle, and you will have a pretty good idea of that plain of festivity.

Many and of various proportions were the tents which, in time past, composed the encampment upon the plains of Donnybrook; and if persevering turbulence on the part of the Emeralders should ever put it into the heads of the members of his majesty’s government to hire a few bands of Cossacks to keep them in order, (and I really believe they are the only folks upon earth who could frighten my countrymen,) the model of a Donnybrook tent will be of great service to the Don-Russian auxiliaries – the materials being so handy and the erection so facile. I shall therefore describe one accurately, that the Emperor Nicholas and his brother Michael, who has seen something of Ireland already, may, upon any such treaty being signed, perceive how extremely well his Imperial Majesty’s Tartars will be accommodated.

Receipt for a Donnybrook Tent.

Take eight or ten long wattles, or any indefinite number, according to the length you wish your tent to be (whether two yards, or half a mile, makes no difference as regards the architecture or construction). Wattles need not be provided by purchase and sale, but may be readily procured any dark night by cutting down a sufficient number of young trees in the demesne or plantation of any gentleman in the neighbourhood – a prescriptive privilege or rather practice, time immemorial, throughout all Ireland.