The author and Counsellor Moore laid by the heels at Rock House—Dismal
apprehensions—A recipe and recovery—The _races_ of Castlebar—The
author forms a party to visit the spot—Members of the party
described—Serjeant Butler and the doctor—Differences of _opinion_—The
serjeant’s bulletin of the famous battle of Castlebar.
After fifteen days of one of the hottest election contests I had ever
witnessed, I accompanied my friend, Counsellor Moore, to his aunt’s,
(Mrs. Burke of Rock House, Castlebar,) where plenty, hospitality, and
the kindest attentions would have soon made amends for our past
misfortunes.—But ill luck would not remit so suddenly:—we had both got a
Mayo _chill_ on us, from the effects whereof, not even abundance of good
claret and hot punch could protect us.
We had retired to rest after a most joyous festivity, when Moore (who
had not been two hours in bed) was roused by the excruciating tortures
of an inflammation of the stomach; and in less than half an hour after I
heard his first groan, I found my own breath rapidly forsaking me; pins
and needles seemed to be darting across my chest in all directions, and
it was quite clear that another _inflammation_ had taken a fancy to _my
lungs_ without giving the slightest notice. I could scarcely articulate,
though my pains were not so very great as those of my poor friend: but I
lost half the power of respiring, and had not even the consolation of
being able to moan so loud as he. This was truly mortifying; but I
contrived to thump strongly against the wainscot, which being hollow,
proved an excellent _conductor_. The family took for granted that the
house was on fire, or that some thief or ghost had appeared; and, roused
up by different conjectures, its members of each sex, age, and rank,
quickly rushed into our room screeching, and jostling each other, as
they followed the old man-servant, who, with a hatchet in his hand, came
on most valiantly. None waited for the ceremony of the toilet; but
approached just as they had quitted their couches—not even a “blanket”
being “in the alarm of fear caught up.”
The first follower of the old footman was a fat cook of Mrs. Burke’s,
Honor O’Maily, who, on learning the cause of the uproar, immediately
commenced clearing herself from any suspicion of _poisoning_; and
cursing herself, without any reservation as to saints and devils, if the
victuals, as she dressed them, were not sweet, good, and right
wholesome: her pepper and salt, she vowed, had been in the house a
fortnight before, and both the fritters and pancakes were fried in _her
own drippings_!
Honor’s exculpatory harangue being with some difficulty silenced, a
hundred antidotes were immediately suggested: Mrs. Burke, an excellent
woman, soon found a receipt at the end of her cookery book for curing
all manner of poisons (for they actually deemed us poisoned), either in
man or beast; and the administration of this recipe was approved by one
Mr. Dennis Shee, another family domestic, who said “he had been
_pysoned_ himself with some love-powders by a young woman who wanted to
marry him, and was cured by the very same stuff the mistress was going
to make up for the counsellors; but that any how he would run off for
the doctor, who to be sure knew best about the matter.”
It was now fully agreed, that some of Denis Brown’s voters had got the
poison from a witch at Braefield,[24] out of spite, and all the servants
cried out that there was no luck or grace for any real gentleman in that
quarter from the time George Robert was hanged.
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Footnote 24:
In old times, Braefield near Turlow had been noted for witches,
several of whom had been burned or drowned for poisoning cattle,
giving love-powders to people’s _childer_ ere they came to years of
maturity, and bestowing the shaking ague on every body who was not
kind to them. When I was at Turlow, they showed me near Braefield five
high granite stones stuck up in the midst of a green field, which they
called “the Witches of Braefield.” They said there was a witch under
every one of these, buried a hundred feet deep “at any rate.”
-----
Poor Mrs. Burke was miserable on every account, since the story of “two
counsellors being poisoned at Rock House” would be such a stain on the
family.
Being raised up in my bed against pillows, I began to think my complaint
rather _spasmodic_ than _inflammatory_, as I breathed better apace, and
felt myself almost amused by the strange scenes going on around. Mrs.
Burke had now prepared her antidote. Oil, salt, soapsuds, honey,
vinegar, and whisky, were the principal ingredients. Of these, well
shaken up in a quart bottle, she poured part down her nephew’s throat
(he not being able to drink it out of a bowl), much as farriers drench a
horse; and as soon as the first gulp was down, she asked poor Moore if
he felt any easier. He answered her question only by pushing back the
antidote, another drop of which he absolutely refused to touch. She made
a second effort to _drench_ him, lest it might be _too late_; but ere
any thing more could be done, the doctor, or rather apothecary and
man-midwife, arrived, when bleeding, blistering, &c. &c. were had
recourse to, and on the third day I was totally recovered; my poor
friend got better but slowly, and after two dangerous relapses.
The incidents which had taken place in Castlebar during the French
invasion, three years before, were too entertaining not to be pried into
(now I was upon the spot) with all my zeal and perseverance. The most
curious of battles, which was fought there, had always excited my
curiosity; I was anxious to discover what really caused so whimsical a
defeat. But so extremely did the several narratives I heard vary—from
the official bulletin to the tale of the private soldier, that I found
no possible means of deciding on the truth but by hearing every story,
and _striking an average_ respecting their veracity, which plan,
together with the estimate of _probabilities_, might, perhaps, bring me
pretty near the true state of the affair. There had certainly been a
battle and flight more humorous in their nature and result than any that
had ever before been fought or accomplished by a British army; neither
powder, ball, nor bayonet had fair claim to the victory; but to a single
true _blunder_ was attributable that curious defeat of our pampered
army—horse, foot, and artillery,—in half an hour, by a handful of
half-starved Frenchmen. So promptly (as I heard) was it effected, that
the occurrence was immediately named—and I suppose it still retains the
appellation—“The _races_ of Castlebar.” I cannot vouch for any single
piece of information I acquired; but I can repeat some of the best of
it; and my readers may strike the average as I do, and form their own
conclusions on the subject. At all events, the relation may amuse them;
and, as far as the detail of such an event can possibly do, afford a
glance at French and Irish, civil and military, high and low,
aristocracy and plebeians:—undoubtedly proving that, after a battle is
over, it suggests the simile of a lady after her baby is born—what was a
cause of great uneasiness soon becomes a source of great amusement.
To attain this, my laudable object, the first thing I had to do was, as
far as practicable, to fancy myself a general; and in that capacity, to
ascertain the errors by which the battle was lost, and the conduct of
the enemy after their victory. _Experientia docet_; and by these means I
might obviate the same disaster on any future occasion. In pursuance of
this fanciful hypothesis, my primary step was, of course, to reconnoitre
the position occupied by our troops and those of the enemy on that
engagement; and in order to do this with effect, I took with me a _very
clever_ man, a serjeant of the Kilkenny militia, who had been trampled
over by Chapman’s heavy horse in their hurry to get off, and left with
half his bones broken, to recover as well as he could. He afterward
returned to Castlebar, where he married, and continued to reside. An old
surgeon was likewise of our party, who had been with the army, and had
(as he informed me) made a most deliberate retreat when he saw the rout
begin. He described the whole affair to me, being, now and then,
interrupted and “_put in_,” as the corporal called it, when he was
running out of the course, or drawing the long-bow. Three or four
country fellows (who, it proved, had been rebels), wondering what
brought us three together, joined the group; and, on the whole, I was
extremely amused.
The position shown me, as originally held by the defeated, seemed, to my
poor _civil_ understanding, one of the most difficult in the world to be
routed out of. Our army was drawn up on a declivity of steep, rugged
ground, with a narrow lake at its foot, at the right whereof was a sort
of sludge-bog, too thick to swim in, and too thin to walk upon—snipes
alone, as they said, having any fixed residence in, or lawful claim to
it. On the other side of the lake, in front of our position, was a hill
covered with underwood, and having a winding road down its side. In our
rear was the town of Castlebar, and divers stone walls terminated and
covered our left. None of my informants could agree either as to the
number of our troops or cannon; they all differed even to the extent of
thousands of men, and from four to twenty pieces of cannon. Every one of
the parties, too, gave his own account in his own way. One of the rebels
swore, that “though he had nothing but ‘this same little switch’ (a
thick cudgel) in his fist, he knocked four or five troopers off their
beasts, as they were galloping over himself, till the French gentlemen
came up and _skivered_ them; and when they were once down, the ‘devil a
much life’ was long left in them.”
“Were you frightened, Mr. O’Donnell?” said I (he told me that was his
name).
“By my sowl!” replied O’Donnell, who seemed a decent sort of farmer, “if
you had been in it that same day, your honour would have had no great
objections to be out of it agin.”
“Now,” said I, “pray, Serjeant Butler, how came the Kilkenny to run away
that day so soon and with so little reason?”
“Becaize we were _ordered_ to run away,” answered the serjeant.
“How can you say that, serjeant?” said the doctor. “I was myself
standing bolt upright at the left of the Kilkenny when they ran without
any order.”
“O yes, indeed! to be sure, doctor!” said Serjeant Butler; “but were you
where I was when Captain Millar the _aidycam_ ordered us off in no
time?”
“He did not,” replied the doctor.
“Why, then, since you make me curse, by J—s he _did_; becaize the
officers afterward all said, that when he ordered us off, he forgot half
what he had to say to us.”
“And pray, what was the other half, serjeant?” inquired I.
“Ah, then, I’ll tell you that, counsellor,” replied Butler. “That same
_aidycam_ was a fat, bloated gentleman, and they said he was rather
thick-winded like a beast, when his mind was not easy: so he comes up
(my lord was looking at the fight, and did not mind him), and he kept
puffing and blowing away while he was ordering us, till he came to the
words, ‘you’ll get off,’ or ‘you’ll advance backwards,’ or some words of
the same kind, I can’t exactly say what;—but it seems, when he desired
us to make off, he forgot to say ‘thirty yards,’ as the officers told us
at Tuam was the general’s word of command:—and as he desired us to _make
off_, but didn’t order us when to _stop_, by my sowl some of us never
stopped or stayed for thirty good _miles_, and long miles too, only to
get a drink of water or halt a noggin of whisky, if there was any in the
alehouse. And sorry enough we were, and sore likewise!—Then there was
that Chapman and his heavy horse; troth I believe every horse in the
place cantered over us as if we were sods of turf. Bad luck to their
sowls! many a poor Kilkenny lad couldn’t get out of their way while
_they_ were making off, and so they tumbled over the Kilkenny
themselves, and all were tumbling and rolling together, and the French
were coming on to stick us; and we were trampled and flattened in the
dust, so that you’d hardly know a corpse from a sheet of brown paper,
only for the red coat upon it.”
The doctor now attempted to tell the story in _his_ way, when the
Kilkenny serjeant, being at length a little provoked at the other’s
numerous interruptions and contradictions, exclaimed, “Arrah! doctor, be
_asy_; it’s I can tell the counsellor, for it’s I that was _in it_, and
almost _kilt_ too; and that’s more than you were, barring with the
_fright_!”
The doctor gave him a look of sovereign contempt, and me a significant
wink, as much as to say, “the fellow is mad, and drunk into the
bargain.”
However, the serjeant conquered all opposition, and proceeded to give me
the full narrative, in his own dialect. “Counsellor,” said he, “do you
know that Chapman—so I think they called him—is as tall as any
May-pole?”
“Very well,” said I.
“Well,” said the serjeant, “on the spot near the bog, where the devil
could not get at us without drying it first and foremost—there we were
drawn up at first, all so neat and tight on the ridge there, one would
think us like iron rails, every lad of us. Very well; being firm and
fast as aforesaid on the ridge, with the shaking bog by the side of _the
Chapman’s_—bad cess to them, man and beast!—Oh! it was not most
agreeable when the French let fly at us without giving us the least
notice in life; and by my sowl, they hit some of the boys of our
regiment, and that same set them a roaring and calling for a drink of
water and the doctor! but the devil a doctor was _in it_; (can you deny
that same?) and his honour, Lord Ormond, our colonel, grew red in the
face with anger, or something or other, when he heard the boys bawling
for _water_, and good reason they had, for by my sowl they were _kilt_
sure enuff. So we leathered at the French across the water, and the
French leathered at us likewise. Devil such a _cracking_ ever you heard,
counsellor, as on that day; and by the same token it would make a dog
laugh to see how Captain Shortall with his cannons let fly at the French
out of the bushes; and by my sowl, _they_ were not idle either! So, we
were all fighting mighty well, as I heard General Lake say in the rear
of us; and as I looked round and took off my cap to hurra, I heard the
devils roar at my elbow, and saw my poor comrade, Ned Dougherty,
staggering back for all the world just as if he was drunk, and the devil
a nose on his face any more than on the back of my hand, counsellor, the
present minute: and on a second glance at poor Ned, I saw one of his
eyes not a whit better off than his nose;—so I called as loud as I could
for a doctor, but the devil a one showed.”
The doctor could stand the imputation no longer, and immediately gave
the retort not courteous to the serjeant.
“Why, then, do you hear that?” said the serjeant, quite coolly. “Arrah!
now, how can you say you were _in it_? When Ned Dougherty was _kilt_,
you know you were sitting _behind_ the cannon; and the devil a bit of
you would have been seen while the powder was going, if the nose was off
the _general_, let alone Ned Dougherty.”
I feared much that my whole inquiries would be frustrated by the
increase of this dispute, when one of the country fellows who was by,
said, “You’re right enuff, serjeant. It was myself and two boys more,
after yees all ran away, that pulled the doctor from under a cart; but
we let him go, becaize he towld us he had ten _childer_ and a wife, who
would crack her heart if she thought he was slaughtered;—and that’s the
truth, and nothing else—though the devil a wife or child ever ye had,
doctor.”
I now winked at the doctor not to mind the fellows, and requested the
serjeant to go on with _the battle_.
“And welcome, counsellor,” said he: “stay, where did I leave off? O! ay,
at Ned Dougherty’s nose:—very well, poor Ned wasn’t kilt _dead_; only
lost his nose and eye, and is very comfortable now, as he says, in
Kilmainham. Very well, as I was saying, we went on slashing away like
devils across the water, when, by my sowl, I heard some cracks up at the
left of us, and the balls began to whiz all across us, lengthways. ‘What
the deuce is this job?’ says I. ‘D—mme if I know,’ said the
serjeant-major;—when Captain Millar, the general’s _aidycam_, comes up
full pelt, and orders us to _get off_ as aforesaid. When we heard that
same order, we thought we were fairly beat; and so, losing no time, set
off as hard as we could to get into Castlebar town again ere the French
could take it before us. And then, Chapman’s people, bad chance to them,
cried out, ‘Get on! get on!’ and galloped away as if the devil was under
their tails, and no more minded _the Kilkenny_ than if we were Norway
rats, trampling us up and down, and some of them tumbling over our
carcases. You’d think it was a race-course: my ribs were all knocked in,
and my collar-bone broken; and—and—that’s all I know, counsellor.”
“Is that _all_, serjeant?” asked I.
“O no, counsellor,” replied he. “I have more to tell, now I think of it.
Every boy in our regiment declared, if it had been Hutchinson that
commanded us, the devil a one would run away if he stayed till this
time, or go to the French either; but all the lads used to say
afterward, ‘Why should we fight under Lake, (whom we neither knew nor
cared to know,) when we had our own brave country general to the fore,
that we’d stick by till death?’ and I forgot to tell you, counsellor—a
hundred or so of our boys who could not run fast, thought it better to
stay quiet and easy with the French than be murdered without the least
reason imaginable; and so they stayed and were treated very handsome:
only owld Corney hanged a good many of the poor boys at Ballynamuck; and
the devil a bit better is Ireland made by hanging any body—and that’s
the truth, and nothing else! Faith, if they hanged a quarter of us all,
another quarter would be wanting it against the next assizes. So, what
use is hanging the boys? Little good will it ever do the remainder!”