Part 11

DICK HENESEY. Arrah! _pay what you owe!_ said he; And _then_ you may go, says he; To Timahoe, says he; To buy the fair, says he; And all that’s there, says he.

TOM FLINTER. Well! by this and by that! said he; Dick! Here, _hang up my hat_! said he.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes.”

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

“Yes.”

“Well, plaze your honour, _that’s not it_ neither—but if your honour will come down this bit of a road a couple of miles, I’ll show it you _sure enough_—and if your honour’s in a hurry, I can run on _hot foot_,[36] and tell the squire your honour’s _galloping after_ me. Ah! who shall I tell the squire, plaze your honour, is coming to see him?—he’s my own landlord, God save his honour day and night!”

Footnote 36:

A figurative expression for “with all possible _speed_”—used by the Irish peasants: by taking short cuts, and fairly hopping along, a young peasant would beat any good traveller.

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

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

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

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

IRISH INNS.

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

An Irish inn has been an eternal subject of ridicule to every writer upon the habits and accommodations of my native country. It is true that, in the early period of my life, most of the inns in Ireland were nearly of the same quality—a composition of slovenliness, bad meat, worse cooking, and few vegetables (save the royal Irish potato); but with plenty of fine eggs, smoked bacon, often excellent chickens, and occasionally the hen, as soon as she had done hatching them—if you could chew her. They generally had capital claret, and plenty of civility in all its ramifications.[37]

Footnote 37:

I have visited many small inns, where they never gave a bill, only a verbal—“_What your honour pleases!_” I once asked a poor innkeeper in Ossory, why he did not make out his bills as other publicans did:—he gave me many reasons for not doing so:—“The gentlemen of the country,” said he, (“God bless them!) often give us _nothing at all_, and the _strange quality_ generally give us _more_ than we’d _ask for_; so both ends meet! But,” added he, proceeding to the most decisive reason of all, “there is never a _schollard_ in the house—and the schoolmaster _drinks_ too much punch, plaze your honour, when Mary sends for him, to draw out a bill for us; so we take our chance!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FATAL DUEL OF MY BROTHER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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