Part 15

The tithe proctor was generally waked out of his first sleep by his door being smashed in; and the _boys_ in white shirts desired him “never to fear,” as they only intended to _card_ him this bout for taking a quarter instead of a tenth from every poor man in the parish. They then turned him on his face upon the bed; and taking a lively ram cat out of a bag which they brought with them, they set the cat between the proctor’s shoulders. The beast, being nearly as much terrified as the proctor, would endeavour to get off; but being held fast by the tail, he intrenched every claw deep in the proctor’s back, in order to keep up a firm resistance to the White Boys. The more the tail was pulled _back_, the more the ram cat tried to go _forward_; at length, when he had, as he conceived, made his possession quite secure, main force convinced him to the contrary, and that if he kept his hold he must lose his tail. So, he was dragged backward to the proctor’s loins, grappling at every pull, and bringing away here and there strips of the proctor’s skin, to prove the pertinacity of his defence.

When the ram cat had got down to the loins he was once more placed at the shoulders, and again _carded_ the proctor (_toties quoties_) according to his sentence.

“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.

Footnote 26:

Two lines of Mr. Lysight’s song describe, quaintly, yet veritably, the practical _point_ of the scenes which occurred at that place of licensed eccentricities. He speaks of the real Irish Paddy, who

“Steps into a tent, just to spend half-a-crown, Slips out, meets a _friend_, and for _joy_ knocks him down! With his sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green.”

It is a literal fact that the blow is as instantly forgiven, and the twain set a-drinking together in great harmony, as if nothing had happened.

A priest constantly attended in former times at an alehouse near Kilmainham, to marry any couples who may have agreed upon that ceremony when they were _drunk_, and made up their minds for its immediate celebration so soon as they should be sober: and after the ceremony he sent them back to the fair for one more drink; and the lady then went home an _honest_ woman, and as happy as possible. Many hundred similar matches used, in old times, to be effected during this carnival. Mr. Lysight also describes the happy consequences of such weddings with infinite humour. He says of the ulterior increase of each family

“and nine months after that A fine boy cries out, ‘How do ye do, Father Pat? With your sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green.’”

This system may somewhat account for the “alarming population of Ireland,” as statesmen now call it.

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 twice[27] 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.

Footnote 27:

For the first of these occurrences see (Vol. ii.) my adventure with Counsellor Daly and Balloon Crosby.

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.

Having procured the said wattles _one way or other_, it is only necessary to stick them down in the sod in two rows, turning round the tops like a woodbine arbour in a lady’s flower-garden, tying the two ends together with neat ropes of hay, which any gentleman’s farm-yard can (during the night time, as aforesaid) readily supply,—then fastening long wattles in like manner lengthways at top from one end to the other to keep all tight together; and thus the “wooden walls” of Donnybrook are ready for roofing in; and as the building materials cost nothing but _danger_, the _expense_ is very trivial.

A tent fifty feet long may be easily built in about five minutes, unless the builders should adopt the old mode of _peeling_ the wattles; and when once a wattle is stripped to its _buff_, he must be a wise landlord indeed who could swear to the identity of the timber—a species of evidence nevertheless that the Irish wood-rangers are extremely expert at.[28] This precaution will not however be necessary for the Don Cossacks, who being educated as highway robbers by the Emperor of all the Russias, and acting in that capacity in every country, cannot of course be called to account for a due exercise of their vocation.

Footnote 28: