Jack Hinton: The Guardsman

‘No, no,’ said he, laughing, ‘make your mind easy about that. Mr. Ulick Burke knows the horse well, and he’ll leave it all to himself.’

The allusion was a pleasant one; but I said nothing, and walked on.

Having procured a lantern at the mill, the groom preceded me to the little outhouse, which acted as stable. He opened the door cautiously, and peeped in.

‘He’s lying down,’ said he to me in a whisper, and at the same moment taking the candle from the lantern, he held it up to permit my obtaining a better view. ‘Don’t be afeard,’ continued he, ‘he ‘ll not stir now, the thief of the earth! When once he’s down that way, he lies as peaceable as a lamb.’

As well as I could observe him, he was a magnificent horse – a little too heavy perhaps about the crest and forehand, but then so strong behind, such powerful muscle about the haunches, that his balance was well preserved. As I stood contemplating him in silence, I felt the breath of some one behind me. I turned suddenly around; it was Father Tom Loftus himself. There was the worthy priest, mopping his forehead with a huge pocket-handkerchief and blowing like a rhinoceros.

‘Ugh!’ said he at length, ‘I have been running up and down the roads this half-hour after you, and there’s not a puff left in me.’

‘Ah, father! I hoped to have seen you at the inn.’ ‘Whisht! I darn’t. I thought I’d do it better my own way; but, see now, we’ve no time to lose. I knew as well as yourself you never intended to ride this race. No matter; don’t say a word, but listen to me. I know the horse better than any one in these parts; and it isn’t impossible, if you can keep the saddle over the first two or three fences, that you may win. I say, if you can – for ‘faith it’s not in a “swing-swong” you’ll be! But, come now, the course was marked out this evening. Burke was over it before dinner; and, with a blessing, we will be before supper. I’ve got a couple of hacks here that’ll take us over every bit of it; and perhaps it is not too much to say you might have a worse guide.’

‘‘Faith, your reverence,’ chimed in the groom, ‘he’d find it hard to have a better.’

Thanking the kind priest for his good-natured solicitude, I followed him out upon the road, where the two horses were waiting us.

‘There, now,’ said he, ‘get up; the stirrups are about your length. He looks a little low in flesh, but you’ll not complain of him when he’s under you.’

The next moment we were both in the saddle. Taking a narrow path that led off from the highroad, we entered a large tilled field; keeping along the headlands of which, we came to a low stone wall, through a gap of which we passed, and came out upon an extensive piece, of grassland, that gently sloped away from where we were standing to a little stream at its base, an arm of that which supplied the mill.

‘Here, now,’ said the priest, ‘a little to the left yonder is the start. You come down this hill; you take the water there, and you keep along by Freney’s house, where you see the trees there. There’s only a small stone wall and a clay ditch between this and that; afterwards you turn off to the right. But, come now, are you ready? We’ll explore a bit.’

As he spoke, the good priest, putting spurs to his hackney, dashed on before me, and motioning me to follow, cantered down the slope. Taking the little mill-stream at a fly, he turned in his saddle to watch my performance.

‘Neat! mighty neat!’ cried he, encouraging me. ‘Keep your hand a little low. The next is a wall – ’

Scarcely had he spoke when we both came together at a stone-fence, about three feet high. This time I was a little in advance, as my horse was fresher, and took it first.

‘Oh, the devil a better!’ said Father Tom. ‘Burke himself couldn’t beat that! Here, now: keep this way out of the deep ground, and rush him at the double ditch there.’

Resolved on securing his good opinion, I gripped my saddle firmly with my knees, and rode at the fence. Over we went in capital style; but lighting on the top of a rotten ditch, the ground gave way, and my horse’s hind legs slipped backwards into the gripe. Being at full stretch, the poor animal had no power to recover himself, so that, disengaging his forelegs, I pulled him down into the hollow, and then with a vigorous dash of the spur and a bold lift carried him clean over it into the field.

‘Look, now!’ said the priest; ‘that pleases me better than all you did before. Presence of mind – that’s the real gift for a horseman when he’s in a scrape; but, mind me, it was your own fault, for here’s the way to take the fence.’ So saying, he made a slight semicircle in the field, and then, as he headed his horse towards the leap, rushed him at it furiously, and came over like the bound of a stag.

‘Now,’ said Father Tom, pointing with his whip as he spoke, ‘we have a beautiful bit of galloping-ground before us; and if you ever reach this far, and I don’t see why you shouldn’t, here’s where you ought to make play. Listen to me now,’ said he, dropping his voice: ‘Tom Molloy s mare isn’t thoroughbred, though they think she is. She has got a bad drop in her. Now, the horse is all right, clean bred, sire and dam, by reason he ‘ll be able to go through the dirt when the mare can’t; so that all you ‘ve to do, if, as I said before, you get this far, is to keep straight down to the two thorn-bushes – there, you see them yonder. Burke won’t be able to take that line, but must keep upon the headlands, and go all round yonder; look, now, you see the difference – so that before he can get over that wide ditch you’ll be across it, and making for the stone wall After that, by the powers, if you don’t win, I, can’t help you!’

‘Where does the course turn after, father?’ said I.

‘Oh! a beautiful line of flat country, intersprinkled with walls, ditches, and maybe a hedge or two; but all fair, and only one rasping fence – the last of all. After that, you have a clean gallop of about a quarter of a mile, over as nice a sod as ever you cantered.’

‘And that last fence, what is it like?’

‘‘Faith, it is a rasper! It’s a wide gully, where there was a boreen once, and they say it is every inch of sixteen feet – that’ll make it close upon twenty when you clear the clay on both sides. The grey horse, I’m told, has a way of jumping in and jumping out of these narrow roads; but take my advice, and go it in a fly. And now, Captain, what between the running, and the riding, and the talking altogether, I am as dry as a limekiln; so what do you say if we turn back to town, and have a bit of supper together? There’s a kind of a cousin of mine, one Bob Mahon, a Major in the Roscommon, and he has got a grouse-pie, and something hot to dilute it with, waiting for us.’

‘Nothing will give me more pleasure, father; and there’s only one thing more – indeed I had nearly forgotten it altogether – ‘’

‘What’s that?’ said the priest, with surprise.

‘Not having any intention to ride, I left town without any racing equipment; breeches and boots I have, but as to a cap and a jacket – ’

‘I ‘ve provided for both,’ said Father Tom. ‘You saw the little man with a white head that sat at the head of the table – Tom Dillon of Mount Brown; you know him?’

‘I am not acquainted with him.’

‘Well, he knows you; that’s all the same. His son, that’s just gone to Gibraltar with his regiment, was about your size, and he had a new cap and jacket made for this very race, and of course they are lying there and doing nothing. So I sent over a little gossoon with a note, and I don’t doubt but they are all at the inn this moment.’

‘By Jove, father!’ said I, ‘you are a real friend, and a most thoughtful one, too.’

‘Maybe I’ll do better than that for you,’ said he, with a sly wink of his eye, that somehow suggested to my mind that he knew more of and took a deeper interest in me than I had reason to believe.

CHAPTER XXIII. MAJOR MAHON AND HIS QUARTERS

The Major’s quarters were fixed in one of the best houses in the town, in the comfortable back-parlour of which was now displayed a little table laid for three persons. A devilled lobster, the grouse-pie already mentioned, some fried ham, and crisped potatoes were the viands; but each was admirable in its kind, and with the assistance of an excellent bowl of hot punch and the friendly welcome of the host, left nothing to be desired.

Major Bob Mahon was a short, thickset little man, with round blue eyes, a turned-up nose, and a full under lip, which he had a habit of protruding with an air of no mean pretension; a short crop of curly black hair covered a head as round as a billiard-ball. These traits, with a certain peculiar smack of his mouth, by which he occasionally testified the approval of his own eloquence, were the most remarkable things about him. His great ambition was to be thought a military man; but somehow his pretensions in this respect smacked much more of the militia than the line. Indeed, he possessed a kind of adroit way of asserting the superiority of the former to the latter, averring that they who fought pro arts et focis– the Major was fond of Latin – stood on far higher ground than the travelled mercenaries who only warred for pay. This peculiarity, and an absurd attachment to practical jokes, the result of which had frequently through life involved him in lawsuits, damages, compensations, and even duels, formed the great staple of his character – of all which the good priest informed me most fully on our way to the house.

‘Captain Hinton, I believe,’ said the Major, as he held out his hand in welcome.

‘Mr. Hinton,’ said I, bowing.

‘Ay, yes; Father Tom, there, doesn’t know much about these matters. What regiment, pray?’

‘The Grenadier Guards.’

‘Oh, a very good corps – mighty respectable corps; not that, between ourselves, I think overmuch of the regulars; between you and me, I never knew foreign travel do good to man or beast. What do they bring back with them, I’d like to know? – French cookery and Italian licentiousness. No, no; give me the native troops! You were a boy at the time, but maybe you have heard how they behaved in the west, when Hoche landed. Egad! if it wasn’t for the militia the country was sacked. I commanded a company of the Roscommon at the time. I remember well we laid siege to a windmill, held by a desperate fellow, the miller – a resolute character, Mr. Hinton; he had two guns in the place with him.’

‘I wish to the Lord he had shot you with one of them, and we ‘d have been spared this long story!’ said the priest.

‘I opened a parallel – ’

‘Maybe you ‘d open the pie?’ said the priest, as he drew his chair, and sat down to the table. ‘Perhaps you forget, Bob, we have had a sharp ride of it this evening?’

‘Upon my conscience, so I did,’ replied the Major good-humouredly. ‘So let us have a bit of supper now, Mr. Hinton, and I’ll finish my story by-and-by.’

‘The Heavens forbid!’ piously ejaculated the priest, as he helped himself to a very considerable portion of the lobster.

‘Is this a fast, Father Loftus?’ said I slyly.

‘No, my son, but we’ll make it one. That reminds me of what happened to me going up in the boat. It was a Friday, and the dinner, as you may suppose, was not over-good; but there was a beautiful cut of fried salmon just before me – about a pound and a half, maybe two pounds; this I slipped quietly on my plate, observing to the company, in this way, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a fast day with me” – when a big fellow, with red whiskers, stooped across the table, cut my bit of fish in two halves, calling out as he carried off one, “Bad scran to ye! d’ye think nobody has a soul to be saved but yourself?”’

‘Ah, they’re a pious people, are the Irish!’ said the Major solemnly, ‘and you’ll remark that when you see more of them. And now, Captain, how do you like us here?’

‘Exceedingly,’ said I, with warmth. ‘I have had every reason to be greatly pleased with Ireland.’

‘That’s right! and I’m glad of it! though, to be sure, you have not seen us in our holiday garb. Ah, if you were here before the Union; if you saw Dublin as I remember it – and Tom there remembers it – “that was a pleasant place.” It was not trusting to balls and parties, to dinners and routs, but to all kinds of fun and devilment besides. All the members of Parliament used to be skylarking about the city, playing tricks on one another, and humbugging the Castle people. And, to be sure, the Castle was not the grave, stupid place it is now – they were convivial, jovial fellows – ’

‘Come, come, Major,’ interrupted I; ‘you are really unjust – the present court is not the heavy – ’

‘Sure, I know what it is well enough. Hasn’t the duke all the privy council and the bishops as often to dinner as the garrison and the bar? Isn’t he obliged to go to his own apartment when they want to make a night of it, and sing a good chorus? Don’t tell me! Sure, even as late as Lord Westmorland’s time it was another thing – pleasant and happy times they were, and the country will never be the same till we have them back again!’

Being somewhat curious to ascertain in what particular our degeneracy consisted – for in my ignorance of better, I had hitherto supposed the present regime about as gay a thing as need be – I gradually led the Major on to talk of those happier days when Ireland kept all its fun for home consumption, and never exported even its surplus produce.

‘It was better in every respect,’ responded the Major. ‘Hadn’t we all the patronage amongst us? There’s Jonah, there – Harrington, I mean; well, he and I could make anything, from a tide-waiter to a master in Chancery. It’s little trouble small debts gave us then; a pipe of sherry never cost me more than a storekeeper in the ordnance, and I kept my horses at livery for three years with a washwoman to Kilmainham Hospital And as for fun – look at the Castle now! Don’t I remember the times when we used to rob the coaches coming from the drawing-rooms; and pretty girls they were inside of them.’

‘For shame, for shame!’ cried Father Tom, with a sly look in the corner of his eye that by no means bespoke a suitable degree of horror at such unwarrantable proceedings.

‘Well, if it was a shame it was no sin,’ responded the Major; ‘for we never took anything more costly than kisses. Ah, dear me! them was the times! And, to be sure, every now and then we got a pull-up from the Lady lieutenant, and were obliged to behave ourselves for a week or two together. One thing she never could endure was a habit we had of leaving the Castle before they themselves left the ball-room. I’m not going to defend it – it was not very polite, I confess; but somehow or other there was always something going on we couldn’t afford to lose – maybe a supper at the barrack, or a snug party at Daly’s, or a bit of fun elsewhere. Her Excellency, however, got angry about it, and we got a quiet hint to reform our manners. This, I need not tell you, was a hopeless course; so we hit on an expedient that answered to the full as well. It was by our names being called out, as the carriages drove up, that our delinquency became known. So Matt Fortescue suggested that we should adopt some feigned nomenclature, which would totally defy every attempt at discovery; the idea was excellent, and we traded on it for many a day with complete success. One night, however, from some cause or other, the carriages were late in arriving, and we were all obliged to accompany the court into the supper-room. Angry enough we were; but still there was no help for it; and so, “smiling through tears,” as the poet says, in we went. Scarcely, however, had we taken our places when a servant called out something from the head of the stairs; another re-echoed it at the ante-chamber, and a third at the supper-room shouted out, “Oliver Cromwell’s carriage stops the way!” The roar of laughter the announcement caused shook the very room; but it had scarcely subsided when there was another call for “Brian Boru’s coach,” quickly followed by “Guy Fawkes” and “Paddy O’Rafferty’s jingle,” which latter personage was no other than the Dean of Cork. I need not tell you that we kept our secret, and joined in the universal opinion of the whole room, “that the household was shamefully disguised in drink”; and indeed there was no end to the mistakes that night, for every now and then some character in heathen or modern history would turn up among the announcements; and as the laughter burst forth, the servants would grow ashamed for a while, and refuse to call any carriage where the style and title was a little out of the common. Ah, Mr. Hinton, if you had lived in those days! Well, well, no matter – here’s a glass to their memory, anyway. It is the first time you ‘ve been in these parts, and I suppose you haven’t seen much of the country?’

‘Very little indeed,’ replied I; ‘and even that much only by moonlight.’

‘I’m afraid,’ said Father Tom, half pensively, ‘that many of your countrymen take little else than a “dark view” of us.’

‘See now,’ said the Major, slapping his hand on the table with energy, ‘the English know as much about Pat as Pat knows of purgatory – no offence to you, Mr. Hinton. I could tell you a story of a circumstance that once happened to myself.’

No, no, Bob,’ said the priest; ‘it is bad taste to tell a story en petit comité. I’ll leave it to the Captain.’

‘If I am to be the judge,’ said I laughingly, ‘I decide for the story.’

‘Let’s have it, then,’ said the priest. ‘Come, Bob, a fresh brew, and begin your tale.’

‘You are a sensual creature, Father Tom,’ said the Major, ‘and prefer drink to intellectual discussion; not but that you may have both here at the same time. But in honour of my friend beside me, I’ll not bear malice, but give you the story; and let me tell you, it is not every day in the week a man hears a tale with a moral to it, particularly down in this part of the country.’

CHAPTER XXIV. THE DEVIL’S GRIP

‘The way of it was this. There was a little estate of mine in the county of Waterford that I used now and then to visit in the shooting season. In fact, except for that, there was very little inducement to go there; it was a bleak, ugly part of the country, a bad market-town near it, and not a neighbour within twelve miles. Well, I went over there – it was, as well as I remember, December two years. Never was there such weather; it rained from morning till night, and blew and rained from night till morning; the slates were flying about on every side, and we used to keep fellows up all night, that in case the chimneys were blown away we ‘d know where to find them in the morning. This was the pleasant weather I selected for my visit to the “Devil’s Grip” – that was the name of the town-land where the house stood; and no bad name either, for, ‘faith, if he hadn’t his paw on it, it might have gone in law, – like the rest of the property. However, down I went there, and only remembered on the evening of my arrival that I had ordered my gamekeeper to poison the mountain, to get rid of the poachers; so that, instead of shooting, which, as I said before, was all you could do in the place, there I was, with three brace of dogs, two guns, and powder enough to blow up a church, walking a big dining-parlour, all alone by myself, as melancholy as may be.

‘You may judge how happy I was, looking out upon the bleak country-side, with nothing to amuse me except when now and then the roof of some cabin or other would turn upside down, like an umbrella, or watching an old windmill that had gone clean mad, and went round at such a pace that nobody dare go near it. All this was poor comfort. However, I got out of temper with the place; and so I sat down and wrote a long advertisement for the English papers, describing the Devil’s Grip as a little terrestrial paradise, in the midst of picturesque scenery, a delightful neighbourhood, and an Arcadian peasantry, the whole to be parted with – a dead bargain – as the owner was about to leave the country. I didn’t add that he had some thought of blowing his brains out with sheer disgust of his family residence. I wound up the whole with a paragraph to the effect that if not disposed of within the month, the proprietor would break it up into small farms. I said this because I intended to remain so long there; and, although I knew no purchaser would treat after he saw the premises, yet still some one might be fool enough to come over and look at them, and even that would help me to pass the Christmas. My calculation turned out correct; for before a week was over, a letter reached me, stating that a Mr. Green, of No. 196 High Holborn, would pay me a visit as soon as the weather moderated and permitted him to travel If he waits for that, thought I, he ‘ll not find me here; and if it blows as hard for the next week, he ‘ll not find the house either; so I mixed another tumbler of punch, and hummed myself to sleep with the “Battle of Ross.”

‘It was about four or five evenings after I received this letter that old Dan M’Cormick – a kind of butler I have, a handy fellow; he was a steward for ten years in the Holyhead packet – burst into the room about ten o’clock, when I was disputing with myself whether I took six tumblers or seven – I said one, the decanter said the other.

‘“It’s blowing terrible, Mr. Bob,” said Dan.

‘“Let it blow! What else has it to do?”

‘“The trees is tumbling about as if they was drunk; there won’t be one left before morn.”

‘“They’re right,” says I, “to leave that, for the soil was never kind for planting.”

‘“Two of the chimneys is down,” says he.

‘“Devil mend them!” said I, “they were always smoking.”

‘“And the hall door,” cried he, “is blown flat into the hall.”

‘“It’s little I care,” said I; “if it couldn’t keep out the sheriff it may let in the storm, if it pleases.”

‘“Murther! murther!” said he, wringing his hands, “I wish we were at say! It’s a cruel thing to have one’s life perilled this way.”

‘While we were talking, a gossoon burst into the room with the news that the Milford packet had just gone ashore somewhere below the Hook Tower, adding, as is always the case on such occasions, that they were all drowned.

‘I jumped up at this, put on my shooting-shoes, buttoned up my frieze coat, and followed by Dan, took a short cut over the hills towards Passage, where I now found the packet had been driven in. Before we had gone half a mile I heard the voices of some country-people coming up the road towards me; but it was so dark you couldn’t see your hand.

‘“Who’s there?” said I.

‘“Tim Molloy, your honour,” was the answer.

‘“What’s the matter, Tim?” said I. “Is there anything wrong?”

‘“Nothing, sir, glory be to God – it’s only the corpse of the gentleman that was drowned there below.”

‘“I ain’t dead, I tell you; I’m only faint,” called out a shrill voice.

‘“He says he’s better,” said Tim; “and maybe it’s only the salt water that’s in him; and, faix, when we found him, there was no more spark in him than in a wet sod.”

‘Well, the short of it was, we brought him up to the house, rubbed him with gunpowder before the fire, gave him about half a pint of burnt spirits, and put him to bed, he being just able to tell me, as he was dropping asleep, that he was my friend from No. 196 High Holborn.

‘The next morning I sent up Dan to ask how he was, and he came down with the news that he was fast asleep. “The best thing he could do,” said I; and I began to think over what a mighty load it would be upon my conscience if the decent man had been drowned. “For, maybe, after all,” thought I, “he is in earnest, maybe he wished to buy a beautiful place like that I have described in the papers”; and so I began to relent, and wonder with myself how I could make the country pleasant for him during his stay. “It’ll not be a day or two at farthest, particularly after he sees the place. Ay, there’s the rub – the poor devil will find out then that I have been hoaxing him.” This kept fretting me all day; and I was continually sending up word to know if he was awake, and the answer always was – still sleeping.

‘Well, about four o’clock, as it was growing dark, Oakley of the Fifth and two of his brother officers came bowling up to the door, on their way to Carrick. Here was a piece of luck! So we got dinner ready for the party, brought a good store of claret at one side of the fireplace, and a plentiful stock of bog-fir at the other, and resolved to make a night of it; and just as I was describing to my friends the arrival of my guest above-stairs, who should enter the room but himself. He was a round little fellow, about my size, with a short, quick, business-like way about him. Indeed, he was a kind of a drysalter, or something of that nature, in London, had made a large fortune, and wished to turn country gentleman. I had only time to learn these few particulars, and to inform him that he was at that moment in the mansion he had come to visit, when dinner was announced.