Waking the piper—Curious scene at my brother’s hunting-lodge—Joe Kelly’s
and Peter Alley’s heads fastened to the wall—Operations practised in
extricating them.
I met with another ludicrous instance of the dissipation of even later
days, a few months after my marriage. Lady B— and myself took a tour
through some of the southern parts of Ireland, and among other places
visited Castle Durrow, near which place my brother, Henry French
Barrington, had built a hunting cottage, wherein he happened to have
given a house-warming the previous day.
The company, as might be expected at such a place and on such an
occasion, was not the most select:—in fact, they were _hard-going_
sportsmen, and some of the half-mounted gentry were not excluded from
the festival.
Amongst others, Mr. Joseph Kelly, of unfortunate fate, brother to Mr.
Michael Kelly, (who by the bye does not say a word about him in his
Reminiscences,) had been invited, to add to the merriment by his
pleasantry and voice, and had come down from Dublin solely for the
purpose of _assisting_ at the banquet.
It may not be amiss to say something here of this remarkable person. I
knew him from his early youth. His father was a dancing-master in
Mary-street, Dublin; and I found in the newspapers of that period a
number of puffs, in French and English, of Mr. O’Kelly’s abilities in
that way—one of which, a certificate from a French _artiste_ of Paris,
is curious enough.[21] What could put it into his son’s head, that he
had been _Master of the Ceremonies at Dublin Castle_ is rather
perplexing! He became a wine-merchant latterly, dropped the O which had
been placed at the beginning of his name, and was a well-conducted and
respectable man.[22]
-----
Footnote 21:
Mr. O’Kelly is just returned from Paris. Ladies and gentlemen, who are
pleased to send their commands to No. 30, Mary-street, will be most
respectfully attended to.
* * * * *
Je certifie que M. Guillaume O’Kelly est venu à Paris pour prendre de
moi leçons, et qu’il est sorti de mes mains en état de pouvoir
enseigner la danse avec succès.
GARDEL, Maître à Danser de la Reine,
et Maître des Ballets du Roi.
À Paris, le 20ème Août, 1781.
Footnote 22:
But as he was a Roman Catholic, and as no Roman Catholic could then
hold any office in the vice-regal establishment of Dublin Castle, Mr.
M. Kelly must have been misinformed on that point as to his father,
whom I have often seen. Mr. Gofton, a dancing-master of Anne-street,
Linen Hall, and uncle to Doctor Barrett, the late extraordinary
vice-provost of Trinity College, was a friend of Mr. O’Kelly’s, and
taught me to the day of his death, which was sudden. Under his
tuition, I beat time and danced minuets for four years. Doctor Barrett
used to carry his uncle’s _kit_ till he entered Dublin College, of
which he died vice-provost. He had two brothers; the most promising
one was _eaten by a tiger_ in Dublin, the other died a pawnbroker.
-----
Joe was a slender young man, remarkably handsome; but what, in that part
of the country, they emphatically styled “the _devil_!” I recollect his
dancing a hornpipe upon the stage in a sailor’s costume most admirably.
He also sang the songs of Young Meadows, in “Love in a Village,”
extremely well, as likewise those of Macheath and other parts; but he
could never give the acting any effect. He was, strictly speaking, a
bravura singer;—there was no deep pathos—nothing _touchant_ in his
cadences;—but in drinking-songs, &c. he was unrivalled. As his brother
has not thought proper to speak about him, it might be considered out of
place for me to go into his history, all of which I know, and many
passages whereof might probably be both entertaining and instructive.
Some parts of it however are already on record, and others I hope will
_never_ be recorded. The Duke of Wellington knew Joe Kelly extremely
well; and if he had merited advancement, I dare say he would have
received it. The last conversation I had with him was on the Boulevard
Italien, in Paris. I was walking with my son, then belonging to the 5th
Dragoon Guards. Kelly came up and spoke to us. I shook him by the hand,
and he talked away:—spoke to my son—no answer;—he tried him again—no
reply. Kelly seemed surprised, and said, “Don’t you know me, Barrington?
why don’t you speak to me?”—“’Tis because I _do_ know you that I do
_not_ speak to you,” replied my son.—Kelly blushed, but turned it off
with a laugh. I could not then guess the reason for this cut direct; and
my son refused to tell me: I have since, however, become acquainted with
it, and think the sarcasm well merited. It was indeed the bitterer, from
its being the only one I ever heard my son utter. Joe Kelly killed his
man in a duel, for which he was tried, and narrowly escaped. According
to his own account indeed, he killed plenty at the battle of Waterloo,
and in other actions. He was himself shot at Paris by a commissary with
whom he had quarrelled, and the Irish humorists remarked thereupon that
Joe had “died a _natural death_.”
Of this convivial assemblage at my brother’s, he was, I take it, the
very life and soul. The dining-room (the only good one) had not been
finished when the day of the dinner-party arrived, and the lower parts
of the walls having only that morning received their last coat of
plaster, were, of course, totally wet.
We had intended to surprise my brother; but had not calculated on the
scene I was to witness. On driving to the cottage-door, I found it open,
whilst a dozen dogs, of different descriptions, showed themselves ready
to receive us not in the most polite manner. My servant’s whip, however,
soon sent them about their business, and I ventured into the parlour to
see what cheer. It was about ten in the morning: the room was strewed
with empty bottles—some broken—some interspersed with glasses, plates,
dishes, knives, spoons, &c.—all in glorious confusion. Here and there
were heaps of bones, relics of the former day’s entertainment, which the
dogs, seizing their opportunity, had cleanly picked. Three or four of
the Bacchanalians lay fast asleep upon chairs—one or two others on the
floor, among whom a piper lay on his back, apparently dead, with a
table-cloth spread over him, and surrounded by four or five candles,
burnt to the sockets; his chanter and bags were laid scientifically
across his body, his mouth was quite open, and his nose made ample
amends for the silence of his drone. Joe Kelly, and a Mr. Peter Alley,
from the town of Durrow, (one of the half-mounted gentry,) were fast
asleep in their chairs, close to the wall.
Had I never viewed such a scene before, it would have almost terrified
me; but it was nothing more than the ordinary custom which we called
_waking the piper_.[23]
-----
Footnote 23:
_Waking the piper_ was an ancient usage. When he had got too drunk to
play any more, he was treated as a corpse—stretched out, and candles
placed round him: while in this insensible state, they put the drone
of his pipe into his mouth, and blew the bellows till he was bloated.
This was called _blowing-up_ the piper with _false music_. It did him
no bodily harm, as burnt whiskey and plenty of pepper soon sent the
wind about its business, to the no small amusement of the company.
-----
I sent away my carriage and its fair inmate to Castle Durrow, whence we
had come, and afterward proceeded to seek my brother. No servant was to
be seen, man or woman. I went to the stables, wherein I found three or
four more of the goodly company, who had just been able to reach their
horses, but were seized by Morpheus before they could mount them, and so
lay in the mangers awaiting a more favourable opportunity. I apprehend
some of the horses had not been as considerate as they should have been
to tipsy gentlemen, since two or three of the latter had their heads cut
by being kicked or trampled on. Returning hence to the cottage, I found
my brother, also asleep, on the only bed which it then afforded: he had
no occasion to put on his clothes, since he had never taken them off.
I next waked Dan Tyron, a wood-ranger of Lord Ashbrook, who had acted as
maître d’hôtel in making the arrangements, and providing a horse-load of
game to fill up the banquet. I then inspected the parlour, and insisted
on breakfast. Dan Tyron set to work: an old woman was called in from an
adjoining cabin, the windows were opened, the room cleared, the floor
swept, the relics removed, and the fire lighted in the kitchen. The
piper was taken away senseless, but my brother would not suffer either
Joe or Alley to be disturbed till breakfast was ready. No time was lost;
and, after a very brief interval, we had before us abundance of fine
eggs, and milk fresh from the cow, with brandy, sugar and nutmeg in
plenty;—a large loaf, fresh butter, a cold round of beef, (which had not
been produced on the previous day,) red herrings, and a bowl-dish of
potatoes roasted on the turf ashes;—in addition to which, ale, whiskey,
and port made up the refreshments. All being duly in order, we at length
awakened Joe Kelly, and Peter Alley, his neighbour: they had slept
soundly, though with no other pillow than the wall; and my brother
announced breakfast with a _view holloa!_[24]
-----
Footnote 24:
The shout of hunters when the game is in view.
-----
The twain immediately started and roared in unison with their host most
tremendously! it was however in a very different tone from the _view
holloa_,—and continued much longer.
“Come boys,” says French, giving Joe a pull—“come!”
“Oh, murder!” says Joe, “I can’t!”—“Murder!—murder!” echoed Peter.
French pulled them again, upon which they roared the more, still
retaining their places. I have in my lifetime laughed till I nearly
became spasmodic; but never were my risible muscles put to greater
tension than upon this occasion. The wall, as I said before, had but
just received a coat of mortar, and of course was quite soft and
yielding when Joe and Peter, having no more cellarage for wine, and
their eyesight becoming opake, thought proper to make it their pillow;
it was nevertheless setting fast from the heat and lights of an eighteen
hours’ carousal; and, in the morning, when my brother awakened his
guests, the mortar had completely set, and their hair being the thing
best calculated to amalgamate therewith, the entire of Joe’s stock,
together with his queue, and half his head, was thoroughly and
irrecoverably bedded in the greedy and now marble cement;—so that if
determined to move, he must have taken the wall along with him, for
separate it would not. One side of Peter’s head was in the same state of
imprisonment, so as to give his bust the precise character of a
bas-relief. Nobody could assist them, and there they both stuck fast.
A consultation was now held on this pitiful case, which I maliciously
endeavoured to protract as long as I could, and which was every now and
then interrupted by a roar from Peter or Joe, as each made fresh efforts
to rise. At length, it was proposed by Dan Tyron to send for the
stone-cutter, and get him to cut them out of the wall with a chisel. I
was literally unable to speak two sentences for laughing. The old woman
meanwhile tried to soften the obdurate wall with melted butter and new
milk—but in vain. I related the school story how Hannibal had worked
through the Alps with vinegar and hot irons:—this experiment likewise
was made, but to no purpose; the hot irons touching _the raw_, only
added a new octave to the roars of the captives, and the Carthaginian
solvent had no better success than the old crone’s. Peter being of a
more passionate nature, grew ultimately quite outrageous: he bellowed,
gnashed his teeth, and swore vengeance against the mason;—but as he was
only held by one side, a thought at last struck him: he asked for two
knives, which being brought, he whetted one against the other, and
introducing the blades close to his skull, sawed away at cross corners
for half an hour, cursing and crying out during the whole operation,
till at length he was liberated, with the loss only of half his hair,
the skin of one jaw, and a piece of his scalp, which he had sliced off
in zeal and haste for his liberty. I never saw a fellow so extravagantly
happy! Fur was scraped from the crown of a new hat, to stop the
bleeding; his head was duly tied up with the old woman’s _praskeen_;[25]
and he was soon in a state of bodily convalescence. Our solicitude was
now required solely for Joe, whose head was too deeply buried to be
exhumated with so much facility. At this moment Bob Casey, of
Ballynakill, a very celebrated wig-maker, just dropped in, to see what
he could pick up honestly in the way of his profession, or steal in the
way of any thing else; and he immediately undertook to get Mr. Kelly out
of the mortar by a very ingenious but tedious process, namely,—clipping
with his scissors and then rooting out with an oyster knife. He thus
finally succeeded, in less than an hour, in setting Joseph Kelly, Esq.
once more at liberty, at the price of his queue, which was totally lost,
and of the exposure of his raw and bleeding occiput. The operation was,
indeed, of a mongrel description—somewhat between a complete _tonsure_
and an imperfect _scalping_, to both of which denominations it certainly
presented claims. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good! Bob
Casey got the making of a skull-piece for Joe, and my brother French had
the pleasure of paying for it, as gentlemen in those days honoured any
order given while enjoying their hospitality, by a guest, to the family
shop-keeper or artizan.
-----
Footnote 25:
A coarse dirty apron, worn by working women in a kitchen, in the
country parts of Ireland, and exhibiting an assemblage of every kind
of filth. Were you to ask a “Collough” why she keeps it so dirty, her
reply would be—“Sure nobody never heard of _washing_ a _praskeen_,
plaze your honor’s honor!”
-----
I ate a hearty breakfast, returned to Durrow, and, having rejoined my
companion, we pursued our journey to Waterford,—amusing ourselves the
greater part of the way with the circumstances just related, which,
however, I do not record merely as an abstract anecdote, but, as I
observed in starting, to show the manners and habits of Irish country
society and sportsmen,[26] even so recently as thirty-five years ago;
and to illustrate the changes of those habits and manners, and the
advances toward civilization, which, coupled with the extraordinary
_want of corresponding prosperity_, present phenomena I am desirous of
impressing upon my reader’s mind, throughout the whole of this
miscellaneous collection of original anecdotes and observations.
-----
Footnote 26:
Pipers at that time formed an indispensable part of every sporting
gentleman’s establishment. My father always had two—the ladies’ piper
for the dance, the gentlemen’s piper for occasions of drinking. These
men rendered that instrument the most expressive imaginable:—with a
piece of buff leather on their thigh, they made the double chanter
almost speak words, and by a humorous mode of jerking the bag, brought
out the most laughable species of chromatic conceivable.
They were in the habit of playing a piece called “the wedding,” in
which words were plainly articulated. The wedding-dinner, the dancing,
drinking, &c. all was expressed in a surprising manner. They also
played “the Hunt, or Hare in the Corn” through all its parts—the
hounds, the horns, the shouts, the chase, the death, &c. If the German
who composed the Battle of Prague had heard an old Irish piper, he
never would have attempted another instrumental imitation of words.
-----