Rebel pranks—Caprice of the insurgents—Puns and piking—Archdeacon
Elgy—His capture by the rebels—Captain Murphy’s harangue and
argument—Proposal made to the Archdeacon—An “Orange parson” converted
into a “green priest”—Father Cahill and Father Pat Elgy—Another
exploit of Captain Murphy—Parson Owen of Wexford—His concealment in a
grocer’s cockloft—Discovered by the _wattle boys_—Dragged to a window
and hung therefrom, by his heels, over a number of pikes—His delirium,
and escape through Captain Murphy’s humanity—Parson Owen’s
superinduced squint, and consequent nuptials—His lady left a
widow—Instance of the fatal effects of unpleasant and unexpected news.
We have, in the foregoing sketch, seen something of the unwarrantable
acts whereof loyal zeal was capable. Let us now take a glance, in
fairness and impartiality, at the conduct of the insurgents,—which
varied exceedingly in different instances. Sometimes, almost as the
humour of the moment guided them, they would treat such as fell in their
power with lenity and moderation: at others, no degree of cruelty was
spared toward those unfortunate individuals.
They had at their mercy, during the whole period, a man of high rank,
their avowed, zealous, and active enemy, a Protestant and Orangeman.
Yet, while numerous persons of inferior classes were piked and
butchered, the Earl of Kingston was unmolested, and left at liberty on
their evacuation of Wexford. It were to be wished that General Lake had
shown similar generosity to Mr. Cornelius Grogan, whose hasty and
unmerited execution by martial law savoured of deliberate murder as
strongly as the death of most who were slaughtered by the rebels.
On many occasions during that dreadful struggle, jests were so strangely
mixed up with murder, that it was not easy to guess which way a scene
would terminate—whether in tragedy or comedy; so much depended on the
sobriety or intoxication of the insurgents.
One or two anecdotes (out of hundreds worth recording) will serve to
show in some degree the spirit of the times; and we will preface them by
observing, that the district (the barony of Forth, in County Wexford,)
most active in rebellion, most zealous and most sanguinary, was the
identical point whereon Strongbow, the first British soldier who set
foot in Ireland, had, six hundred and twenty seven years before, begun
his colonization. Most of the Wexford rebels, indeed, were lineal
descendants of the original Britons who came over there from South Wales
and Bristol, and repeopled that district after their countrymen had
nearly exterminated the aboriginal natives.
The rebels had obliged Major Maxwell, with the king’s troops, far too
precipitately to evacuate Wexford; and that officer, by the rapidity of
his movements, gave neither time nor notice to the loyalists to retreat
with him. It was therefore considered, that Archdeacon Elgy, a dignitary
of the Protestant church, was the most likely subject for the rebels to
begin their slaughter with; and the general opinion ran that he would
have at least a dozen pikes through his body before dinner-time on the
day the insurgents entered.
Of this way of thinking was the divine himself: nor did the numerous
corresponding surmises prove erroneous. Sentence of death was promptly
passed upon the archdeacon, who was held to aggravate his offences by
contumacy.
A certain shrewd fellow, yclept a _captain_ among the rebels, however,
saw things in a different point of view; and, though without any
particularly kind feelings toward the archdeacon, he, by use of a very
luminous argument, changed the determination of his comrades.
“What’s the good,” said he, “of _piking_ the old man? Sure, if he’ll
give in, and worship the Virgin in our chapel, won’t it be a better job?
They say he’s a very good Orange parson, and why shouldn’t he make a
good _green priest_, if he’ll take on with Father Cahill? Devil the much
harm ever he did us!—so, if yees agree to that same, I’ll tell him, fair
and easy, to _take on_ with the Virgin to-morrow in the big chapel, or
he’ll find himself more _holy_ than _godly_ before the sun sets.”
The concluding joke, however trite, put them all in good humour; and the
orator proceeded: “Come a couple of dozen of ye, boys, with wattles on
your shoulders; give me the colours and cross, and we’ll go to Parson
Elgy.”
In fact they went to the archdeacon, and Mr. Murphy, the spokesman, told
him very quietly and civilly that he came to “offer his reverence life
and liberty, and a good parish too, if he would only _do the thing_
cleverly in the way Father Cahill would show him.”
The reverend doctor, not comprehending the nature of the condition, and
conceiving that they probably only required him to stand neuter,
replied, in a quivering voice, “that he would never forget the
obligations: he was well content with the cure he had, but not the less
indebted to them for their kind offer to give him a better.”
“Ough!” said Captain Murphy, “your reverence happens to be all in the
wrong.”
The archdeacon of course fell into his nervous fit again, and stood
quaking as if both Saint Vitus’ dance and the _tic douloureux_ had
assailed him at once with their utmost rancour.
“I am only come,” resumed Murphy, “just to give your reverence two
little _choices_.”
“Oh, Lord! Captain Murphy, what are they?” cried the clerical gentleman.
“Either to take your turn to-morrow in the big _chapel_, with our
clergy, and be one of them yourself, or to receive two-and-twenty pikes
straight _through_ your reverence’s carcase, as you will otherwise do,
before the sun sets this blessed day—and by my sowl it’s not far from
that time now! (Here the doctor groaned most heavily.) One of the
things,” pursued the rebel, “is quite easy for your reverence to do, and
the other is quite easy for _us_ to do; and so there will be no great
trouble in it either way. Come on, lads, and just show your _switches_
to his reverence.”
Above twenty long pikes were instantly flourished in the air with an
hurra that nearly shook every nerve of the archdeacon out of its natural
situation.
“Ah, gentlemen!” said he, “spare a poor old man, who never harmed any of
you. For the love of God, spare me!”
“Arrah! be easy, parson,” said Captain Murphy: “sure there’s but _one_
God between us all, and that’s plenty, if there were as many more of us.
So what are we differing and bothering about? whether you say your
prayers in the _church_ or in the _chapel_, in _Latin_ or in _English_;
whether you reckon them on your beads, or read them on your book,—sure
it’s all one to Him, and no great _differ_, I should think, to any
sensible gentleman,—especially when he cannot help himself! Boys, handle
your switches; though, by my sowl, I’d be sorry to _skiver_ your
reverence.”
The archdeacon, though an excellent orthodox parson, now began to see
his way, and was too wise to have any thing to do with Captain Murphy’s
_switches_ if it were avoidable. He recollected that the great bishops
and archbishops who were roasted alive in Queen Mary’s time, for the
very same reason, got but little credit from posterity for their
martyrdom; and how could he expect _any_ for being _piked_, which was
not half so dilatory a death as roasting? Then, again, he considered
that twenty pikes in a man’s body would not be near as nourishing as one
barnacle or lobster (on which he had for many years loved to feed). He
deemed it better to make a merit of necessity; and accordingly, putting
on a civil face, agreed to all their proposals. He then took a drink of
holy water (which Captain Murphy always carried in a bottle about with
him); made several crosses upon his forehead with a feather dipped in
some “blessed oil” (tinged with green); and after every pike-man had
shaken him by the fist, and called him Father Pat Elgy, it was finally
settled he should next day be rechristened in “the big chapel” by all
the Fathers, taught to celebrate mass as well as the best of them, and
get a _protection_ for having _taken on_ as a true Catholic.
The gentlemen with their _switches_ now retired, uplifting shouts of
exultation at having _converted_ the archdeacon, while that dignitary
tottered back to his family, who had given him up for lost, were
bewailing his cruel martyrdom, and triumphed at his return, though at
the expense of his orthodoxy. A cold roast leg of mutton was then
produced;—and heartily discussing that _creature comfort_, his reverence
could not avoid congratulating himself when he observed the mark of the
_spit_, and reflected that there would have been two-and-twenty much
wider perforations drilled through his own body had not Captain Murphy
made a _papist_ of him.
Next morning, _Father Elgy_ was duly christened _Patrick_; renounced
Martin Luther, in the great chapel of Wexford, as an egregious impostor;
and being appointed a _coadjutor_, celebrated mass with considerable
dexterity and proper gesticulation. He subsequently set about getting
the double manual by heart, that he might be ready to _chaunt_, as soon
as Father Cahill should teach him the several tunes.
The archdeacon, though he had no great reason to be ashamed of his
second christening, (particularly as he had always prayed against
_sudden death_ while he was a Protestant,) could yet never bear, in
after times, to hear the circumstance alluded to, since it could not be
mentioned but a laugh was unavoidable. I often saw Murphy afterward: he
had been generally humane, saved many lives, and was not prosecuted. He
himself told me the foregoing story, with that exquisite simplicity
which belongs almost exclusively to his rank of Irishmen.
Another Protestant clergyman did not fare quite so well as the
archdeacon, being never able to look any man _straight_ in the face
afterward. Parson Owen, brother to Miss Owen of Dublin (heretofore
mentioned in the anecdotes of Doctor Achmet Borumborad), had a small
living in the neighbourhood of Wexford; and as he looked for church
preferment, was, of course, a violent, indeed an outrageous royalist.
Now, as almost every man among his parishioners held a different creed,
both in religion and politics, he was not over-popular in _quiet_ days;
and when the bustle began, thinking it high time to secure his precious
person, he retired for better security into the town of Wexford. He had
not, however, consulted an _oracle_;—that being the first place attacked
by the rebels: and Major Maxwell, as has been stated, having with his
garrison retreated without beat of drum, the parson found himself
necessitated to resort to a cockloft in a grocer’s house in the
Bull-ring at Wexford; where, provisions not being quite handy, and an
empty stomach good for contemplation, he had ample opportunity to
reflect on the species of death he would, most likely meet. The
_promotion_ of _Father Pat Elgy_ had not come to his knowledge.
Previous to this event, the parson had fallen in love with the only
daughter of Mr. Brown, a rich trader, who had formerly kept a tan-yard
in Enniscorthy; or rather his reverence _fell in love_ with a great
number of _government debentures_, bearing interest at five per cent per
annum, which the young lady informed him would be all her own if she
“behaved herself.” He had, therefore, three cogent reasons for seeking
to prolong his life:—first, the natural love of it; secondly, the
debentures; and _lastly_, the damsel.
However, his security was by no means permanent. Early one morning,
wishing to get a mouthful of fresh air, his reverence ventured to peep
out of his garret-window into the street, and was instantly recognised
by one of the _wattle-boys_, as the pike-men were then called.
“Hah! hah! your reverence is there, sure enough,” said the man of the
wattle. “Ough! by my sowl if you budge out of that peep-hole till I come
back again, we’ll make a big bonfire of ye and your Orange family
altogether. Plaze, now, don’t let me _lose sight_ of your reverence
while I run for my commander: it’s he’ll know what to do with the likes
of ye.”
The rebel immediately ran off, but soon returned with the same “Captain
Murphy,” and a whole company of pike-men, just to “skiver the parson.”
Owen was a dapper, saucy, pert-looking, little fellow: he had good sharp
eyes, an excellent use of his tongue, and was considered keen: and
though a high churchman, he was thought at times to be rather more free
and easy in his little sensualities than most bishops could reasonably
have approved of. On this latter account, indeed, it was said that Mr.
Brown, before-mentioned, did not relish him for a son-in-law. Ladies,
however, are sometimes more charitable in this respect; Miss Brown
conceived that whatever his _piety_ might amount to, his _love_, at
least, was orthodox; and in this belief, she privately counselled her
swain to affect more holiness before her papa:—to be lavish, for
instance, in abuse of the powers of darkness; to speak slower, and in a
more solemn tone; to get longer skirts made to his coats and waistcoats,
let his hair grow lank, and say grace with becoming gravity and
deliberation,—not as if he were impatient to rush at the eatables before
they were properly blessed. “Eating,” added the didactic lady, “may
become a vice if too luxuriously gratified; whereas hunger must be a
virtue, or the popes would not so strongly recommend fasting.”
At this stage of the treaty, and of the castle-building on the
foundation of a tan-yard, his reverence was unfortunately seized in the
cockloft by Captain Murphy; and though the captain was a neighbour of
his, and a decent sort of cattle-dealer, yet Parson Owen gave himself up
for lost to an absolute certainty. His love was, therefore, quite
quenched in horror: his throat swelled up as if he had a quinsy, and he
anticipated nothing short of that which he had prayed against (like
Doctor Elgy) every Sunday since he obtained holy orders—namely, a sudden
death. He thought repentance was, as the French say, _meilleur tard que
jamais_, and accordingly _began_ to repent and implore as hard as
possible,—though without the most remote idea that his supplications
would have time to reach heaven before he himself was turned loose on
the road thither.
Captain Murphy, who, as we have seen, was, although coarse, a
_good-tempered_ fellow, on entering the room with half-a-dozen
wattle-boys, otherwise _executioners_, very civilly told Parson Owen,
“He would be obliged to him just to prepare himself for the other world:
whether the other world was a _better_ place or a _worse_, he would not
attempt to divine;—all he could _assure_ his reverence was, that he
should not be very long going there.—The boys below,” continued Captain
Murphy, “having a good many more to send along with you to-day, your
reverence will be so good as to come down to the first floor as soon as
convenient, that you may drop more agreeably from thence out of the
window on the pikes!”
Without much ceremony, the poor parson was handed down one flight of
stairs, when Captain Murphy opening a window as wide as he could, begged
Owen would be _kind enough_ to take off his coat and waistcoat, and
throw them to the boys below; the remainder of his dress they might take
from the corpse, after his reverence had _stiffened_!
The parson was nearly petrified; but there was no appeal. The captain’s
attendants civilly helped him to remove his upper garments, for which he
had the pleasure of seeing an amusing scramble under the window,
accompanied by a hundred jokes upon the little parson’s surtout, which
not being large enough for any middle-sized rebel, the smallest fellow
among them appropriated it, and strutted about therein, amidst the
horse-laughter of his companions.
Captain Murphy now ordered his wattlers to draw up close under the
window, in order to welcome his reverence on the points of their weapons
as he went out head-foremost. The order was promptly obeyed, with loud
huzzas. The parson’s legs were tied firmly together with a towel which
the captain found in the room; but his arms were left loose, to flourish
about (as they said) like a _windmill_, and make the _sight_ the more
_agreeable_!
“Now, boys,” said the captain, “I’ll out with his reverence; and when I
let him go, do you all _catch him_!”
The parson was in good earnest thrust out of the window, and hung with
his head downward and his arms at liberty, (a very disagreeable
position,) to the great amusement of the gentlemen of the wattle, as was
proved by a due mixture of grins and shouts. If any of my readers have
seen a pack of hungry spaniels sitting on their haunches round a
sportsman’s table, looking up to their master, and licking their jaws
with impatience for the morsel he holds in his fingers to throw among
them, they may imagine the enviable situation of Parson Owen, dangling
out of the grocer’s window at the Bull-ring in Wexford;—Serjeant Murphy
meanwhile holding his legs, and now and then giving him a little shake,
as if he intended to let him drop—asking his reverence if he were
_ready_ to _step down_ to the croppies.
The condemned Lutheran was, of course, all this time gazing with
straining eyeballs upon the forest of pikes underneath. His blood (as if
to witness the curiosity) rushed down to his head; and he naturally fell
into a state of delirium. All he could recollect or relate afterward
was, that “as his eyes met the pikes just under him, and heard the
rebels call on the captain to ‘_let go!_’ the influx of blood to his
brain operated as, he should imagine, apoplexy might;”—and the captain
perceiving his prisoner to be senseless, and actually intending, if
possible, to save him, cried out to the men below that “by J—s the
parson was ‘stone dead’ of the _fright_, and was quite _kilt_!”
“Hurrah!” cried the wattle-boys.
“Hurrah!” repeated Captain Murphy: “The devil any use in dirtying your
pikes with a dead parson! Better not _spoil his clothes_, boys! his
shirt alone is worth a crown, if it’s worth a farthing.”
Some of the wattlers bespoke one garment—some another:—and these were
thrown out of the window by Murphy, who left the poor parson in his
“birth-day suit,” with five times as much blood in his head as it was
anatomically entitled to. The attendants in the room all thought he was
absolutely dead, and scampered down to assist in the _scramble_. But
Murphy, as he departed, whispered to the owner of the house, “The parson
has life enough in him, yet! you don’t think I intended to kill my
neighbour, if I could help it, do you? But if ever he _shows_ again, or
any of ye tell a single word of this matter, by J—s every living sowl
shall be burnt into black cinders!”
The _defunct_ was then covered with a quilt, carried up to a back
cockloft, and attended there by the two old women who, in fact, alone
occupied the house. He remained safe and sound till the town was retaken
by General Lake, who immediately hanged several disaffected gentlemen,
cut off their heads by martial law, and therewith ornamented the
entrance of the court-house, as heretofore described. Parson Owen was
now fully liberated, with the only difference of having got a lank body,
confused brains, a celestial squint, and an illegitimate sort of St.
Vitus’s dance, commonly called a _muscular contortion_, which, by
occasional twitches and jerks, imparted both to his features and limbs
considerable _variety_.
However, by the extraordinary caprice of Dame Fortune, what the parson
considered the most dreadful incident of his life turned out, in one
respect, the most fortunate one. Mr. Brown, the father of his charmer,
was moved to pity by his sufferings and escape, and still further
conciliated by the _twist_ in his optic nerves, which gave the good
clergyman the appearance, whenever he played the orator in his
reading-desk or pulpit, of looking steadfastly and devoutly up to
heaven. Hence he acquired the reputation of being marvellously increased
in godliness; and Miss Brown, with her debentures, was at length
committed to his “holy keeping.” I believe, however, the worthy man did
not long survive to enjoy his wished-for prosperity. St. Vitus grew too
familiar; and poor Owen became, successively, puny, sickly, and
imbecile: the idea of the pikes never quitted his sensorium; and after a
brief union, he left his spouse a dashing young widow, to look out for
another helpmate, which I understand she was not long in providing.
Sudden fright and horror, or even agitating news, have often the most
extraordinary effect on the human frame, exciting a variety of
disorders, and sometimes even death. I have myself seen numerous
examples of the overwhelming influence of _surprise_. Not long since, a
near relative of mine, a clergyman of ample fortune—a pattern of
benevolence and hospitality—healthy, comely, happy, and adored by his
parishioners—had been driven into some trifling lawsuit. He had
conceived a strange opinion, that a clergyman would be _disgraced_ by
any cause he contested being given _against_ him. With this notion, he
attached an _ideal_ importance to success; and the thing altogether
rendered him anxious and uneasy. The day of decision at the assizes of
Carlow came on: he drove in his gig to the court-house door, quite
certain of the _justice_ of his cause, and confident, therefore, of its
issue;—when the attorney who acted for his opponent, coming out of
court, abruptly told him that the decision was adverse to him. The
extreme suddenness of this unexpected news, like an electric shock,
paralysed his frame, extinguished all his faculties—and, in a word, he
instantaneously fell _dead_! The event was even if possible more
lamentable, as the intelligence was communicated in sport. The cause had
been actually decided in my relation’s favour.