Part 5

Gilbert had received two pokes from my grandfather on his thigh and his side, but neither disabling. I fancy he had the best of the battle, being as strong as, and less irritable than, my grandfather, who, I suspect, grew, toward the last, a little ticklish on the subject; for he rushed headlong at Gilbert, closed, and instead of striking at his person, thrust his broad-sword into the horse’s body as often as he could, until the beast dropped with his rider underneath him: my grandfather then leaped off his horse, threw away his sword, and putting his skeen, or broad dagger, to the throat of Gilbert, told him to ask his life or die, as he must do either one or the other in half a minute. Gilbert said he would ask his life only upon the terms that, without apology or conversation, they should shake hands heartily and be future friends and companions, and not leave the youths of two old families to revenge their quarrel by carving each other. These terms being quite agreeable to my grandfather, as they breathed good sense, intrepidity, and good heart, he acquiesced; and from that time they were the most intimately attached and joyous friends and companions of the county wherein they resided.

My grandfather afterward fought at Clapook Squire Neddy Fitzgerald, who was badly shot. On this occasion, old Gilbert was my grandfather’s second:—I remember well seeing him; as I do also, about the same time, the late Chief Justice (then _Serjeant_) Pattison, who had come down to Cullenaghmore to visit my grandfather, and, as I afterward discovered, to cheat him of a borough and two seats in parliament, which he effected. Gilbert brought me a great many sweet things; and I heard that evening so many stories of fights at Clapook, and on the ridge of Maryborough, that I never forgot them; and it is curious enough that I have all my life taken the greatest delight in hearing of, or reading about, ancient battles and chivalrous adventures. Nothing amuses me more to this day; and hence perhaps it is, that I recollect those tales and traditions at the present moment with perfect distinctness and accuracy: my memory seldom fails me in any thing, and least of all in recitals such as the foregoing.[11]

Footnote 11:

I have found many notes respecting such-like matters, in old Ms. books, &c. &c.; particularly two or three at the end of an old Cookery book, in Ms., by my great-grandmother Lady Byrne, of Timogue, in her own hand-writing, in 1729, with several receipts purporting to be by Lady Rory O’Neil, of Smithfield, Dublin, who died in 1741, at a great age. I shall revive this subject in another volume, which I contemplate.

GEORGE HARTPOLE.

Curious fatality in the Hartpole family—Characteristic sketch of the last of the name—Description of Shrewl Castle—The chapel and cemetery—Strictures on epitaph-writing—Eccentricities of the Earl of Aldborough—His Lordship proposes his sister, Lady Hannah Stratford, as _returning-officer_ for the borough of Baltinglass—Consequent disturbances—The North-Briton put on his mettle, but out-manœuvred—“Lending to _the Lord_”—Successful conspiracy to marry Hartpole to the daughter of a village inn-keeper—He is stabbed by his wife, and deserts her in consequence—He forms an attachment to Miss Maria Otway, whom he marries, under the plea of his previous connexion being illegal—Unfortunate nature of this union—Separation of the parties—Hartpole’s voyage to Portugal, his return, and death—Sundry other anecdotes of the Stratford family.

In the year 1791, George Hartpole, of Shrewl Castle, Queen’s County, Ireland, had just come of age. He was the last surviving male of that name, which belonged to a popular family, highly respectable, and long established in the county. Few private gentlemen commenced life with better promise, and none better merited esteem and happiness. He was my relative by blood; and though considerably younger, the most intimate and dearest friend I had.

His father, Robert, had married a sister of the late and present Earls of Aldborough. She was the mother of George; and through this connexion originated my intercourse with that eccentric nobleman and his family.

A singular fatality had attended the Hartpole family from time immemorial. The fathers seldom survived the attainment of the age of 23 years by their elder sons, which circumstance gave rise to numerous traditionary tales of sprites and warnings.[12]

Footnote 12:

The country authorities were very wise, very grave, and very grim on this subject; but, after all, I suspect the most natural way of accounting for the fatality alluded to is, that the old gentlemen were commonly among the _hardest livers_ in the country, and consequently, the gout was certain to be their companion, and generally their executioner.

If wood be kept _alternately_ in and out of moisture, it rots soon:—if it is _always_ in water, it never decays. A man’s constitution and rum-punch may to a degree resemble wood and water in this respect. The hardest _incessant_ drinkers I ever recollect lived to a great age, were generally healthy, and usually made their exit, at last, by apoplexy, without troubling either doctor, parson, or apothecary: while, on the contrary, most of those who were only _intermitting_ boozers, died much earlier; their _finisher_ being, nine times out of ten, gout in the head or stomach: a cause, however, occasionally varied by a broken neck by a fall from a horse, when riding home from a housewarming, or drowning in a ditch, whilst watering their horses after the _dogh à dourish_. A few were smothered in shaking bogs, whilst attending the turf-cutters, &c. &c.

It required at least three days and nights incessant _hard going_ to kill a drinker of the first class. It cost Squire Luke Flood of Roundwood, a place situated in Queen’s County, _five_ days and nights hard working at port before he could _finish_ either himself or the piper. Old Squire Lewis Moor of Cremorgan died, by way of _variety_, at seventy-six, of a violent _passion_, because his wife became jealous of his proceedings with the kitchen-maid. A few died of Drogheda usquebaugh, and several of _sore ancles_. I recollect, in fact, many of the most curious deaths and burials in Ireland that ever took place in any country under heaven. None of them were considered as being _melancholy events_, since every _hard going_ squire then generally took his full turn in this world, and died by some _coup de grace_, as stated: however, he was commonly regretted by all his acquaintance and family, except his _eldest son_.

Robert, as usual with the gentlemen of his day, was the dupe of agents, and the victim of indolence and hospitality. He had deposited his consort in the tomb of her fathers, and had continued merrily enjoying the convivialities of the world (principally in the night-time) till his son George had passed his 22nd year, and then punctually made way for _the succession_, leaving George inheritor of a large territory, a moderate income, a tattered mansion, an embarrassed rent-roll, and a profound ignorance (without the consciousness of it) of business in all departments.

George, though not at all handsome, had completely the mien and manners of a gentleman. His features accorded well with his address, bespeaking the cordiality of a friend and the ardour of an Irishman. His disposition was mild—his nature brave, generous, and sincere: on some occasions he was obstinate and peevish; on others, somewhat sullen and suspicious; but in his friendships, George Hartpole was immutable.

His stature was of the middle height, and his figure exhibited no appearance either of personal strength or constitutional vigour: his slender form and the languid fire of his eye indicated excitation without energy; yet his spirits were moderately good, and the most careless observer might feel convinced that he had sprung from no ordinary parentage—a circumstance which then had due influence in Ireland, where agents, artisans, and attorneys had not as yet supplanted the ancient nobility and gentry of the country.

Shrewl Castle, the hereditary residence of the Hartpoles, was in no way distinguishable from the numerous other castellated edifices now in a state of dilapidation throughout the whole island—ruins which invariably excite a retrospect of happier times, when the resident landlord, reverenced and beloved, and the cheerful tenant, fostered and protected, felt the natural advantages of their reciprocal attachment; a reflection which leads us to a sad comparison with modern usages, when the absent lord and the mercenary agent have no consideration but the rents, no solicitude but for their collection; when the deserted tenantry keep pace in decline with the deserted mansion; when the ragged cottager has no master to employ, no guardian to protect him!—pining, and sunk in the lowest state of want and wretchedness,—_sans_ work, _sans_ food, _sans_ covering, _sans_ every thing,—he rushes forlorn and desperate into the arms of destruction, which in all its various shapes stands ready to receive him. The reflection is miserable, but true:—such is Ireland since the year 1800.

Hartpole’s family residence, picturesquely seated on a verdant bank of the smooth and beautiful Barrow, had, during the revolutions of time, entirely lost the character of a fortress: patched and pieced after all the numberless orders of village architecture, it had long resigned the dignity of a castle without acquiring the comforts of a mansion: yet its gradual descent, from the stronghold of powerful chieftains to the rude dwelling of an embarrassed gentleman, could be traced even by a superficial observer. Its half-levelled battlements, its solitary and decrepit tower, and its rough, dingy walls, (giving it the appearance of a sort of habitable _buttress_,) combined to portray the downfall of an ancient family.

Close bounding the site of this ambiguous heritage was situate the ancient burial-place of the Hartpole family and its followers for ages. Scattered graves, some green—some russet—denoted the recentness or remoteness of the different interments; and a few broad flag-stones indented with defaced or illegible inscriptions, and covering the remains of the early masters of the domain, just uplifted their mouldering sides from among weeds and briars, and half disclosed the only objects which could render that cemetery interesting.

One melancholy yew-tree, spreading wide its straggling branches over the tombs of its former lords and the nave of an ancient chapel, (its own hollow trunk proclaiming that it could not long survive,) seemed to await, in awful augury, the honour of expiring with the last scion of its hereditary chieftains.

To me the view of this melancholy tree always communicated a low feverish sensation, which I could not well account for. It is true, I ever disliked to contemplate the residence of the dead:[13] but that of the Hartpole race, bounding their hall of revelry, seemed to me a check upon all hilarity; and I never could raise my spirits in any room, or sleep soundly in any chamber, which overlooked that sanctuary.

Footnote 13:

I never could get over certain disagreeable sensations and awe at the interment of _any_ person. So strongly, indeed, have I been impressed in this way, that I formed a resolution, which (with one exception) I have strictly adhered to these forty years,—namely, never to attend the funeral even of a relative. I have now and then indulged a whim of strolling over a country church-yard, occasionally to kill time when travelling, in other instances for statistical purposes: but, in general, the intelligible and serious inscriptions on the tomb-stones are so mingled and mixed with others too ridiculous even for the brain of a stone-cutter to have devised, that the rational and preposterous, alternately counteracting each other, made a sort of equipoise; and I generally left an ordinary church-yard pretty much in the same mood in which I entered it.

The incidents which marked the life of the last owner of Shrewl Castle were singular and affecting, and on many points may tend to exhibit an instructive example. Nothing, in fact, is better calculated to influence the conduct of society, than the biography of those whose career has been conspicuously marked either by eminent virtues or peculiar events. The instance of George Hartpole may serve to prove, were proof wanting, that matrimony, as it is the most irrevocable, so is it the most precarious step in the life of mortals; and that sensations of presentiment and foreboding (as I have already more than once maintained) are not always visionary.

I was the most valued friend of this ill-fated young man. To me his whole heart was laid open;—nor was there one important circumstance of his life, one feeling of his mind, concealed from me. It is now many years since he paid his debt to nature; and, by her course, I shall not much longer tarry to regret his departure; but, whilst my pilgrimage continues, that regret cannot be extinguished.

George had received but a moderate education, far inadequate to his rank and expectations; and the country life of his careless father had afforded him too few conveniences for cultivating his capacity. His near alliance, however, and intercourse with the Aldborough family, gave him considerable opportunities to counteract, in a better class of society, that tendency to rustic dissipation to which his situation had exposed him, and which, at first seductive, soon becomes habitual, and ruinous in every way to youthful morals.

Whatever were the other eccentricities or failings of Robert, Earl of Aldborough (the uncle of Hartpole), the hyperbolical ideas of importance and dignity which he had imbibed, though in many practical instances they rendered him ridiculous, still furnished him with a certain address and air of fashion which put rustic vulgarity out of his society, and, combined with a portion of classic learning and modern belles-lettres, never failed to give him an entire ascendancy over his ruder neighbours. This curious character exhibited a pretty equal proportion of ostentation and meanness.[14]

Footnote 14:

Hartpole, though he despised the empty arrogance of his uncle, yet saw that his Lordship knew the world well and profited by that knowledge:—he therefore occasionally paid much attention to some of my Lord’s _worldly_ lectures; and had he observed the _best_ of them, though he might possibly have appeared less amiable, he would doubtless have been far more fortunate. But Hartpole could not draw the due distinction between the folly of his uncle’s ostentation and the utility of his address; disgusted with the one, he did not sufficiently practise the other; and despised the idea of acting as if he knew the world, lest he should be considered as affecting to know too much of it.

The most remarkable act of his Lordship’s life was an experiment regarding his sister, Lady Hannah Stratford. The borough of Baltinglass was in the patronage of the Stratford family; and on that subject, his brothers, John and Benjamin, never gave him a peaceable moment: they always opposed him, and generally succeeded. He was determined, however, to make a new kind of burgomaster or returning-officer, whose adherence he might religiously depend on. He therefore took his _sister_, Lady Hannah, down to the corporation, and recommended _her_ as a fit and proper returning-officer for the borough of Baltinglass! Many highly approved of her Ladyship, by way of a _change_, and a double return ensued—a man acting for the brothers, and the lady for the nobleman. This created a great battle. The honourable ladies of the family all got into the thick of it: some of them were well trounced—others gave as good as they received: the affair made a great uproar in Dublin, and informations were moved for and granted against some of the ladies. However, the brothers, as was just, kept the borough, and his Lordship never could make any farther hand of it.

The _high_-ways of Lord Aldborough, and the _by_-ways with which he intersected them, are well exhibited by an incident that occurred to him when the country was rather disturbed in 1797. He proceeded in great state, with his carriage, outriders, &c. to visit the commanding officer of a regiment of cavalry which had just arrived in that part of the country. On entering the room, he immediately began by informing the officer “that he was the Earl of Aldborough, of Belan Castle; that he had the finest mansion, demesne, park and fish-ponds in that county, and frequently did the military gentlemen the _honour_ of inviting them to his dinners;”—adding, with what he thought a dignified politeness, “I have come from my castle of Belan, where I have all the conveniences and luxuries of life, for the especial purpose of saying, Major, I am glad to see the military in my county, and have made up my mind to give _you_, Major, my countenance and protection.” The Major, who happened to be rather a rough soldier and of a country not famed for the softness of its manners, could scarcely repress his indignation at his Lordship’s arrogant politeness: but when the last sentence was pronounced, he could restrain himself no longer:—“Coontenance and proteection!” repeated he contemptuously, two or three times: “as for your _proteection_, Mister my Lord, Major M‘Pherson is always able to proteect himsel; and as for your _coontenance_, by heeven I would not tak it for your eerldom!”

His Lordship withdrew, and the Major related the incident as a singular piece of assurance. My Lord, however, knew the world too well to let the soldier’s answer stick against himself:—next day he invited _every_ officer of the regiment to dinner, and so civilly, that the Major lost all credit with his brother officers for his surly reply to so hospitable a nobleman! Nay, it was even whispered among them at mess, that the Major had actually _invented_ the story, to show off his own wit and independence;—and thus Lord Aldborough obtained complete revenge.

On another occasion, his Lordship got off better still:—being churchwarden of Baltinglass parish, he did not please the rector, Bob Carter, as to his mode of accounting for the money in the poor-boxes. The peer treated Bob (who was as hard-going, good-hearted, devil-may-care a parson as any in Ireland) with the greatest contempt. The parson, who felt no sort of personal respect for my Lord, renewed his insinuations of his Lordship’s _false arithmetic_, until the latter, highly indignant, grew wroth, and would give Bob no further satisfaction on the matter: upon which, the rector took the only revenge then in his power, by giving out a _second_ charity sermon, inasmuch as the proceeds of the first had not been productive. The hint went abroad, the church was crowded, and to the infinite amusement of the congregation, Bob put forth as his text—“Whosoever _giveth_ to the _poor, lendeth_ to the _Lord_.” The application was so clear, that the laugh was irresistible. Bob followed up his blow all through the sermon, and “the Lord” was considered to be completely blown; but skilfully enough, he contrived to give the matter a turn that disconcerted even the Rev. Bob himself. After the sermon was concluded, his Lordship stood up, publicly thanked Bob for his most _excellent text_ and charity sermon, and declared that he had no doubt the Lord Lieutenant or the bishop would very soon promote him, according to his extraordinary merits, which he was ready to vouch, in common with the rest of the parishioners; finally begging of him to have the sermon _printed_!

Hartpole’s fortune on the death of his father was not large; but its increase would be great and _certain_, and this rendered his adoption of any money-making profession or employment unnecessary. He accordingly purchased a commission in the army, and commenced his _entré_ into a military life and general society with all the advantages of birth, property, manners, and character.

A cursory observation of the world must convince us of one painful and inexplicable truth;—that there are some men (and frequently the best) who, even from their earliest youth, appear born to be the victims of undeviating misfortune; whom Providence seems to have gifted with free-agency only to lead them to unhappiness and ruin. Ever disappointed in his most ardent hopes—frustrated in his dearest objects—his best intentions overthrown—his purest motives calumniated and abused,—no rank or station suffices to shelter such an unfortunate:—_ennui_ creeps upon his hopeless mind, communicates a listless languor to a sinking constitution, and at length he almost joyfully surrenders an existence which he finds too burdensome to be supported.[15]

Footnote 15:

I cannot better illustrate the state of a person so chased by misery, than by quoting a few unpublished lines, the composition of a very young lady, Miss M. T., with whom, and with whose amiable family, I have the pleasure of being intimate.

I am aware that I do her great injustice by quoting these particular verses—some of the most _inferior_ of her writings; but they seem so much to the point, that I venture to risk her displeasure. She is not, indeed, irritable; and I promise to atone for my error by a few further quotations from her superior compositions.

I.

I never sought a day’s repose But some sharp thorn pierced my breast; I never watch’d the evening’s close, And hoped a heaven of rest; But soon a darkling cloud would come Athwart the prospect bright, And, pale as twilight on a tomb, My hopes grew dim in night.

II.

Oft have I mark’d the heav’nly moon Wandering her pathless way Along the midnight’s purple noon, More fair—more loved than day: But soon she flung her shadowy wreath O’er dark eternity, As a faint smile on the cheek of death ’Twixt hope and agony.

III.

Oft on the rainbow’s bloom I’ve gazed, Arch’d as a gate of heaven, Till gushing showers its portals razed, And bathed the brow of even. ’Tis thus young hopes illume the sky Of Life’s dark atmosphere, Yet, like the rainbow’s splendid dye, They meet and disappear.

IV.

Ev’n so, the mirth of man is madness;— His joy as a sepulchral light, Which shows his solitude and sadness, But chaseth not the night.

Such nearly was the lot of the last of the Hartpoles. He had scarcely commenced a flattering entrance into public life, when one false and fatal step, to which he was led first by a dreadful accident, and subsequently by his own benevolent disposition, worked on by the chicanery of others, laid the foundation of all his future miseries.

While quartered with his regiment at Galway, in Ireland, his gun, on a shooting party, burst in his hand, which was so shattered, that it was long before his surgeon could decide that amputation might be dispensed with.