Changes in the nuptial ceremony in Ireland—Description of the
_ancient_ formula—Throwing the stocking—A lucky hit—Reverse of
the picture—Modern marriages—Coming of age—Nuptials of the
author’s eldest brother—Personal description of the bride and
bridegroom—Various preparations—Dresses of the different members
of the wedding-party—The coach of ceremony—The travelling
chaise—A turnpike dispute—Convenient temporary metamorphosis of
the author and two of his brothers—Circumstances preceding the
marriage in question—A desperate lover—Disasters and blunders—A
“scene”—Major Tennyson Edwards—Marries a sister of the
author—His fortunate escape from a ludicrous catastrophe.
There are few changes in the manners and customs of society in Ireland
more observable than those relating to marriage. The day has been,
within my recollection, when that ceremony was conducted altogether
differently from the present mode. Formerly, no damsel was _ashamed_, as
it were, of being married. The celebration was joyous, public, and
enlivened by every species of merriment and good cheer. The bride and
bridegroom, bridesmaids, and bridesmen (all dressed and decorated in gay
and gallant costumes), vied in every effort to promote the pleasure they
were themselves participating. When the ceremony was completed, by
passing round a final and mystical word, “Amazement!”—every body kissed
the bride. The company then all saluted each other: cordial
congratulations went round, the music struck up, and plenty of plum cake
and wine seemed to anticipate a _christening_. The bride for a moment
whimpered and coloured; the mamma wept with gratification; the
bridesmaids flushed with sympathy, and a scene was produced almost too
brilliant for modern apathy even to gaze at. The substantial banquet
soon succeeded; hospitality was all alive; the bottle circulated; the
ball commenced; the bride led off, to take leave of her celibacy; men’s
souls were softened; maidens’ hearts melted; Cupid slily stole in, and I
scarce ever saw a joyous public wedding whereat he had not nearly
expended his quiver before three o’clock in the morning. Every thing
cheerful and innocent combined to show the right side of human nature,
and to increase and perfect human happiness; a jovial hot supper gave
respite to the dancers and time to escort Madam Bride to her
nuptial-chamber—whither, so long as company were permitted to do so, we
will attend her. The bed-curtains were adorned with festoons of ribbon.
The chamber was well lighted; and the bridesmaids having administered to
the bride her prescriptive refreshment of white-wine posset, proceeded
to remove her left stocking and put it into her trembling hand: they
then whispered anew the mystical word before mentioned; and having bound
a handkerchief over her eyes, to ensure her impartiality, all the lovely
spinsters surrounded the nuptial couch, each anxiously expecting that
the next moment would anticipate her promotion to the same happy
predicament within three hundred and sixty-five days at the very
farthest. The bride then tossed the prophetic hosiery at random among
her palpitating friends, and whichever damsel was so fortunate as to
receive the blow was declared the next maiden in the room who would
become devoted to the joys of Hymen; and every one in company—both
ladies and gentlemen—afterward saluted the cheek of the lucky girl. The
ball then recommenced; the _future_ bride led off; night waned;—and
Phœbus generally peeped again ere the company could be brought to
separate. Good-humoured tricks were also on those happy occasions
practised by arch girls upon the bridegroom. In short, the pleasantry of
our old marriages in Ireland could not be exceeded. They were always
performed in the house of the lady’s parents or of some relative. It
would fill a volume were I to enumerate the various joyful and happy
incidents I have witnessed at Irish weddings.[46]
-----
Footnote 46:
How miserably has modern refinement reversed those scenes of happiness
and hilarity—when the gentry of my native land were married in warm,
cheerful chambers, and in the midst of animated beings, beloving and
beloved! No gloom was there: every thing seemed to smile; and all
thoughts of death or memoranda of mortality were discarded.
Now, those joyous scenes are shifted by sanctity and _civilisation_.
Now, the female soul almost shudders—and it well may—on reaching the
site of the connubial ceremony. The long, chilling aisle, ornamented
only by sculptured tablets and tales of death and futurity, is
terminated by the sombre chancel—whence the unpupilled eye and vacant
stare of cold marble busts glare down on those of youth and animation,
seeming to say, “Vain, hapless couple! see me—behold your fate!—the
time is running now, and will not stop its course a single moment till
you are _my_ companions!” Under such auspices, the lovers’ vows are
frozen ere they can be registered by the recording angel.
The cheerless ceremony concluded, the bridegroom solemnly hands the
silent bride into her travelling chariot; hurries her to some country
inn, with her pretty maid—perhaps destined to be a future rival; they
remain there a few days, till yawning becomes too frequent, and the
lady then returns to town a listless matron—to receive, on her couch
of _ennui_, a string of formal congratulations, and predictions of
connubial comfort, few of which are doomed to be so _prophetic_ as the
_bridal stocking_ of her grandmother.
-----
At one of the old class of weddings took place the most interesting
incident of my early life, as I stated in a former volume. The spectacle
and events of that union never can be erased from my memory, and its
details furnish a good outline wherefrom those of other marriages of
that period, in the same sphere of society, may be filled up.
In those days, so soon as an elder son came of age, the father and he
united to raise money to pay off all family incumbrances. The money
certainly was raised, but the incumbrances were so lazy, that in general
they remained _in statu quo_. The estates were soon clipped at both
ends; the father nibbling at one, the son pilfering at the other, and
the attorney at both. The rent-roll became short; and it was decided
that the son must marry to “sow his wild oats,” and make another
settlement on younger children. Money, however, was not always the main
object of Irish marriages:—first, because it was not always to be had;
and next, because if it was to be had, it would so soon change masters,
that it would be all the same after a year or two. Good family, good
cheer, and beauty, when they could find it, were the chief
considerations of a country gentleman, whose blood relatives, root and
branch (as is still the case on the continent), generally attended the
act of alliance, with all the splendour their tailors, milliners, and
mantua-makers could or would supply.
My eldest brother (the bridegroom on the occasion alluded to) was an
officer of that once magnificent regiment the black horse, and fell most
vehemently in love with the sister of a brother-officer, afterward
Colonel E—— of Old Court, County Wicklow. I have described some beauties
in my former volumes; but the charms of Alicia E—— were very different
from the dazzling loveliness of Myrtle Yates, or the opening bloom of
Maria Hartpool. She was inferior to either in symmetry; but in interest
had an infinite superiority over both. Alicia was just eighteen: she had
no regular feature: her mouth was disproportionately large; her lips
were coral; her eyes destitute of fire—but they were captivating
tell-tales; her figure was rather below the middle height, but without
an angle; and the round, graceful delicacy of her limbs could not be
surpassed. It was, however, the unrivalled clearness of her pellucid
skin that gave a splendour and indescribable charm to the contour of
Alicia’s animated face. I may be considered as exaggerating when I
declare that her countenance appeared nearly transparent, and her hands
were more clear than may well be imagined. Her address was still more
engaging than her person.
Such was the individual to whom my nut-brown and unadorned D—— W——[47]
was selected as bridesmaid. My brother was gentlemanly, handsome, and
gallant, but wild; with little judgment and a very moderate education.
-----
Footnote 47:
See Vol. i.
-----
It being determined that the wedding should be upon a public and
splendid scale, both families prepared to act fully up to that
resolution. The proper trades-people were set to work; ribbon favours
were woven on a new plan; in fact, all Dublin heard of the preparations
from the busy milliners, &c.; and on the happy day, a crowd of
neighbours collected about my father’s house in Clare Street, to see the
cavalcade, which was to proceed to Old Court House, near the Dargle,
where the ceremony was to be performed.
The dress of those days on such occasions was generally splendid; but
our garments “out-Heroded Herod.” The bridegroom, cased in white cloth
with silver tissue, belaced and bespangled, glittered like an eastern
caliph. My mother, a woman of high blood and breeding, and just pride,
was clad in what was called a _manteau_ of silvered satin: when standing
direct before the lights, she shone out as the reflector of a lamp; and
as she moved majestically about the room, and curtseyed _à la Madame
Pompadour_, the rustling of her embroidered habit sounded like music
appropriate to the flow of compliments that enveloped her. My father,
one of the handsomest men of his day, was much more plainly dressed than
any of us.
The gilded coach of ceremony (which I noticed in an early sketch) was
put in requisition; and its four blacks, Bully, Blackbird, the colt, and
Stopford (fourteen years of age), were all as sleek and smooth as if cut
out of ebony. Tom White and Keeran Karry (postilions), with big Nicholas
(the footman), sported appropriate costumes; and the whole was led by
Mr. Mahony, the butler, mounted on Brown Jack, my father’s hunter.
The cavalcade started off at a hand-gallop for Bray, accompanied by the
benediction of old Sarah the cook, and Judy Berger the hereditary
house-keeper, who stood praying meanwhile, and crossing their foreheads,
at the door. An old travelling chaise of no very prepossessing
appearance (which had been rescued from the cocks and hens in the
country out-house), with a pair of hacks, was driven by Matthew Querns
the huntsman, and contained the residue of the party—namely, my two
other brethren and self.
The more particular description of our attire may strike certain
_moderns_ as somewhat ridiculous; but that attire was in the _goût_ of
the day, and covered as good proportions as those of the new gentry who
may deride it. The men wore no stays; the ladies covered their
shoulders; and the first were to the full as brave, and the latter at
least as modest, as their successors. _Our_ wedding suits were literally
thus composed. The blue satin vests and inexpressibles were well laced
and spangled wherever there was any room for ornament. The coats were of
white cloth with blue capes. Four large paste curls, white as snow with
true rice powder, and scented strong with real bergamot, adorned our
heads. My third brother, Wheeler Barrington, had a coat of scarlet
cloth, because he was _intended_ for the army.
In truth, greater luminaries never attended a marriage festivity. Our
equipage, however, by no means corresponded with our personal splendour
and attractions; and I thought the contrast would be too ridiculous to
any observing spectator who might know the family. I therefore desired
Matthew to take a short turn from the great rock road to avoid notice as
much as possible; which caution being given, we crowded into the
tattered vehicle, and trotted away as swiftly as one blind and one lame
horse could draw such magnificoes. There were (and are) on the circular
road by which I had desired Matthew Querns to drive us, some of those
nuisances called turnpikes. When we had passed the second gate, the
gatekeeper, who had been placed there recently, of course demanded his
toll. “Pay him, French,” said I to my brother. “Faith,” said French, “I
changed my clothes, and I happen to have no money in my pocket.” “No
matter,” answered I, “Wheeler, give the fellow a shilling.” “I have not
a rap,” said Wheeler.—“I lost every halfpenny I had yesterday at the
royal cockpit in Essex Street.”
By a sort of instinct I put my hand into my own pocket; but instinct is
not money, and _reality_ quickly informed me that I was exactly in the
same situation. However, “no matter,” again said I; so I desired old
Matthew Querns to pay the turnpike. “Is it me pay the pike?” said
Matthew—“me? the devil a cross of wages I got from the master this many
a day; and if I did, do you think, Master Jonah, the liquor would not be
after having it out of me by this time?” and he then attempted to drive
on _without_ paying, as he used to do at Cullenaghmore. The man however
grappled the blind horse, and gave us a full quantum of abuse, in which
his wife, who issued forth at the sound, vociferously joined. Matthew
began to whack him and the horses alternately with his thong whip; my
brother French struggled to get out, and beat the pike-man; but the door
would not open readily, and I told him that if he beat the turnpike man
properly, he’d probably bleed _a few_ himself; and that a single drop of
blood on his fine clothes would effectually exclude him from society.
This reasoning succeeded; but the blind horse not perceiving what was
the matter, supposed something worse had happened, and began to plunge
and break the harness. “You d—d gilt vagabonds,” said the turnpike man,
“such fellows should be put into the stocks or ducked at the broad stone
beyond Kilmainham. Oh! I know you well enough! (looking into the
carriage window:) what are yees but stage-players that have run away
from Smock Alley, and want to impose upon the country-folk!—But I’ll
neither let yees back or forward, by ——, till you pay me a _hog_ for the
pike, and two and eightpence-halfpenny for every wallop of the whip that
the ould green mummer there gave me, when I only wanted my honest dues.”
I saw fighting was in vain; but courtesy can do any thing with an
Irishman. “My honest friend,” said I, (to soften him,) “you’re right; we
are poor stage-players sure enough: we have got a loan of the clothes
from Mr. Ryder—may Heaven bless him! and we’re hired out to play a farce
for a great wedding that’s to be performed at Bray to-night. When we
come back with our money we’ll pay you true and fair, and drink with you
till you’re stiff, if you think proper.”
On this civil address the pike-man looked very kind: “Why, then, by my
sowl it’s true enough,” said he, “ye can’t be very rich till ye get your
entrance money; but sure I won’t be out of pocket for all that. Well,
faith and troth, ye look like decent stage-players; and I’ll tell you
what, I like good music, so I do. Give me a new song or two, and d—mme
but I’ll let you off, you poor craturs, till you come back agin. Come,
give us a chaunt, and I’ll help you to mend the harness too!”
“Thank you, sir,” said I humbly. “I can’t sing,” said my brother French,
“unless I’m drunk!” “Nor I, drunk or sober,” said Wheeler. “You _must_
sing for the _pike_,” said I to French; and at length he set up his
pipes to a favourite song, often heard among the half-mounted gentlemen
in the country when they were drinking; and as I shall never forget any
incident of that (to me) eventful day, and the ditty is quite
characteristic both of the nation generally and the half-mounted
gentlemen in particular, (with whom it was a sort of charter song,) I
shall give it.
D—n money—it’s nothing but trash:
We’re happy though ever so poor!
When we have it we cut a great dash,
When it’s gone, we ne’er think of it more.
Then let us be wealthy or not,
Our spirits are always the same;
We’re free from every dull thought,
And the “Boys of old Ireland’s” our name!
I never saw a poor fellow so pleased as the pike-man; the words hit his
fancy: he shook us all round, most heartily, by the hand; and running
into his lodge, brought out a pewter pot of frothing beer, which he had
just got for himself, and insisted on each of us taking a drink. We of
course complied. He gave Matthew a drink too, and desired him not to be
so handy with his whip to other pike-men, or they’d _justice_ him at
Kilmainham. He then helped up our traces; and Matthew meanwhile, who,
having had the last draught, had left the pot no further means of
exercising its hospitality—enlivened by the liquor and encouraged by the
good-nature of the pike-man, and his pardon for the _walloping_—thought
the least he could do in gratitude was to give the honest man a sample
of his own music, vocal and instrumental: so taking his hunting horn
from under his coat (he never went a yard without it) and sounding his
best “Death of Reynard,” he sang a stave which was then the charter song
of _his_ rank, and which he roared away with all the graces of a view
holloa:
Ho! ro! the sup of good drink!
And it’s ho! ro! the heart wou’dn’t think!
Oh! had I a shilling lapp’d up in a clout,
’Tis a sup of good drink that should wheedle it out.
And it’s ho! ro! &c. &c.
The man of the pike was delighted. “Why, then, by my sowl, you ould
mummer,” said he, “it’s a pity the likes of you should _want_ a _hog_.
Arrah! here (handing him a shilling), maybe your whistle would run dry
on the road, and you’ll pay me when you come back, won’t you? Now all’s
settled, off wid yees! Success!—success!” And away we went, as fast as
the halt and blind could convey us.
We arrived safe and in high glee, just as the prayer-book was getting
ready for the ceremony. I apologised for our apparent delay by telling
the whole story in my own manner. D— W— seemed wonderfully amused. I
caught her eye: it was not like Desdemona’s; but she told me afterward,
that my _odd_ mode of relating that adventure first made her remark me
as a singularity. She was so witty on it herself, that she was the cause
of wit in me. She was indefatigable at sallies—I not idle at repartee;
and we both amused ourselves and entertained the company.
I sat next to D— W— at dinner; danced with her at the ball; pledged her
at supper; and before two o’clock in the morning my heart had entirely
deserted its master.
I will here state, by way of episode, that great difficulties and
delays, both of law and equity, had postponed the matrimonial connexion
of my brother, Major Barrington (he bore that rank in the old
volunteers), for a considerable time. There was not money enough
_afloat_ to settle family incumbrances, and keep the younger children
from starving. A temporary suspension was of course put to the
courtship. My brother in consequence grew nearly outrageous, and swore
to me that he had not slept a wink for three nights, considering what
species of _death_ he should put himself to. Strong, and young, (though
tolerably susceptible myself,) my heart was at that time my own, and I
could not help laughing at the extravagance of his passion. I tried to
ridicule him out of it. “Heavens!” said I, “Jack, how can you be at a
loss on _that_ score? You know I am pretty sure that, by your intended
suicide, I shall get a step nearer Cullenaghmore. Therefore, I will
remind you that there are a hundred very _genteel_ ways by which you may
despatch yourself without either delay or expense.”
He looked at me quite wildly. In fact he was distractedly in love.
Alicia was eternally on his lips, and I really believe, if his head had
been cut off like the man’s in Alonzo de Cordova, it would have
continued pronouncing “Alicia,” till every drop of blood was clean out
of it. Reasoning with a mad lover is in vain, so I still pursued
ridicule. “See,” said I, “that marble chimney-piece at the end of the
room; suppose, now, you run head-foremost against it,—in all human
probability you’ll knock your brains out in a novel and not at all a
vulgar way.”
I spoke in jest, but found my hearer jested not. Before I could utter
another word, he bent his head forward, and with might and main rushed
plump at the chimney-piece, which he came against with a crash that I
had no doubt must have finished him completely. He fell back and lay
without a struggle; the blood gushed, and I stood petrified. The moment
I was able I darted out of the room, and calling for aid, his servant
Neil came. I told him that his master was dead.
“Dead!” said Neil, “By —— he is, and _double dead_ too! Ah! then, who
_kilt_ the major?”
He took him up in his arms, and laid him on a sofa. My brother, however,
soon gave Neil the “retort courteous.” He opened his eyes, groaned, and
appeared any thing but _dying_. My fright ceased; he had been only
stunned, and his head cut, but his brains were safe in their case. He
had luckily come in contact with the _flat_ part of the marble: had he
hit the _moulding_, he would have ended his love and misfortunes
together, and given me, as I had said, a step toward Cullenaghmore. The
cut on his head was not material, and in a few days he was tolerably
well again. This story, however, was not to be divulged; it was
determined that it should remain with us a great secret. Neil, his
servant, we swore on a bible not to say a word about it to any body; but
the honest man must have practised some mental reservation, as he
_happened_ just only to _hint_ it to his sweetheart, Mary Donnellan, my
mother’s maid, and she in a tender moment told the postilion Keeran, for
whom she had a regard. Keeran never kept a secret in all his life; so he
told the dairy-maid, Molly Coyle, whom he preferred to Mary Donnellan.
And the dairy-maid told my father, who frequented the dairy, and
delighted to see Molly Coyle a-churning. The thing at length became
quite public; and my brother, to avoid raillery, set off to his regiment
at Philipstown, whither I accompanied him. He still raved about taking
the first favourable _opportunity_ of putting himself to death, if the
courtship were much longer suspended; and spoke of gallantly throwing
himself off his charger at full gallop, previously fastening his foot in
the stirrup. The being dragged head downwards over a few heaps of paving
stones would certainly have answered his deadly purpose well enough; but
I dissuaded him without much difficulty from that species of
self-murder, by assuring him that every body, in such a case, would
attribute his death to _bad horsemanship_, which would remain, on the
records of the regiment, an eternal disgrace to his professional
character. Many other projects he thought of; but I must here make one
remark, which perhaps may be a good one in general—namely, that every
one of those projects _happened_ to originate _after dinner_—a period
when Irishmen’s chivalric fancies are at their most enthusiastic and
visionary height.
At length, a happy letter reached the major, signifying that all parties
had agreed, and that his Alicia, heart and hand, was to be given up to
him for life, as his own private and exclusive property—“to have and to
hold, for better for worse,” &c. &c. This announcement rendered him
almost as wild as his despair had done previously. When he received the
letter, he leaped down a flight of stairs at one spring, and in five
minutes ordered his charger to be saddled for himself; his hunter, “Mad
Tom,” for me; and his chestnut, “Rainbow,” for Neil. In ten minutes we
were all mounted and in full gallop toward Dublin, which he had
determined to reach that night after one short stoppage at Kildare,
where we arrived (without slackening rein) in as short a time as if we
had rode a race. The horses were fed well, and drenched with hot ale and
brandy; but as none of them were in love, I perceived that they would
willingly have deferred the residue of the journey till the ensuing
morning. Indeed, my brother’s steed conceiving that _charges_ of such
rapidity and length were not at all military, unless in _running away_,
determined practically to convince his master that such was his notion.
We passed over the famous race-ground of the Curragh in good style; but,
as my brother had not given his horse time to lie down gently and rest
himself in the ordinary way, the animal had no choice but to perform the
feat of lying down whilst in full gallop—which he did very expertly just
at the Curragh stand-house. The only mischief occurring herefrom was,
that the drowsy charger stripped the skin, like rags, completely off
both his knees, scalped the top of his head, got a hurt in the back
sinews, and (no doubt without intending it) broke both my brother’s
collarbones. When we came up (who were a few hundred yards behind him),
both man and beast were lying very quietly, as if asleep;—my brother
about five or six yards before the horse, who had cleverly thrown his
rider far beyond the chance of being tumbled over by himself. The result
was, as usual on similar occasions, that the horse was led limping and
looking foolish to the first stable, and committed to all the farriers
and grooms in the neighbourhood. My brother was carried flat on a door
to the nearest ale-house; and doctors being sent for, _three_ (with bags
of instruments) arrived from different places before night, and, after a
good deal of searching and fumbling about his person, one of them
discovered that both collar-bones were smashed, as aforesaid, and that
if either of the broken bones or splinters thereof turned _inward_ by
his stirring, it might run through the lobes of his lungs, and very
suddenly end all hopes of ever completing his journey: his nose had
likewise taken a different turn from that it had presented when he set
out:—and the palms of his hands fully proved that they could do without
any skin, and with a very moderate quantity of flesh.
However, the bones were well arranged, a pillow strapped under each arm,
and another at his shoulder-blades. All necessary comforts were
procured, as well as furniture from Mr. Hamilton, whose house was near.
I did not hear a word that night about Alicia; but in due time the major
began to recover once more, and resumed his love, which had _pro
tempore_ been literally knocked out of him. It was announced by the
doctor that it would be a long time before he could use his hands or
arms, and that removal or exercise might produce a new fracture, and
send a splinter or bone through any part of his interior that might be
most handy.
Though I thought the blood he had lost, and the tortures the doctor put
him to, had rendered his mind a good deal tamer than it was at
Maryborough, he still talked much of Alicia, and proposed that I should
write to her, on his part, an account of his misfortunes; and the doctor
in attendance allowing him the slight exertion of signing his name and
address in his own handwriting, I undertook to execute my task to the
utmost of my skill, and certainly performed it with great success. I
commenced with due warmth, and stated that the “accident he had met with
only retarded the happiness he should have in making her his wife, which
he had so long burned for, but which circumstances till then had
prevented,” &c. &c. (The words I recollect pretty well, because they
afterward afforded me infinite amusement.) The letter was sealed with
the family arms and crest.
“Now, Jonah,” said my brother, “before I marry I have a matter of some
importance to arrange, lest it should come to the ears of my Alicia,
which would be my ruin; and I must get you to see it settled for me at
Philipstown, so as to prevent any thing exploding.” He went on to give
me the particulars of a certain _liaison_ he had formed with a young
woman there, an exciseman’s daughter, which he was now, as may be
supposed, desirous of breaking; and (though protesting that interference
in such matters was not at all to my taste) I consented to write, at his
dictation, a sort of compromise to the party, which he having signed,
both epistles were directed at the same time, and committed to the
post-office of Kilcullen bridge.
The amorous and fractured invalid was now rapidly advancing to a state
of convalescence. His nose had been renovated with but an inconsiderable
partiality for the left cheek; his collar-bones had approximated to a
state of adhesion; and he began impatiently to count the days and nights
that would metamorphose his Alicia from a spinster to a matron.
The extravagance of his flaming love amused me extremely: his aerial
castles were built, altered, and demolished with all the skill and
rapidity of modern architecture; while years of exquisite and unalloyed
felicity arose before his fancy, of which they took an immovable grasp.
We were busily engaged one morning in planning and arranging his
intended establishment, on returning to the sports and freaks of a
country gentleman (with the addition of a terrestrial angel to do the
honours), when, on a sudden, we heard rather a rough noise at the
entrance of the little chamber wherein the invalid was still reclining
upon a feather-bed, with a pillow under each arm to keep the bones in
due position. Our old fat landlady, who was extremely partial to the
cornet,[48] burst in with her back toward us, endeavouring to prevent
the entrance of a stranger, who, however, without the least ceremony,
giving her a hearty curse, dashed into the centre of the room in a state
of bloated rage scarcely conceivable—which was more extraordinary as the
individual appeared to be no other than Captain Tennyson Edwards, of the
30th regiment, third brother of the beloved Alicia. Of course we both
rose to welcome him most heartily: this however he gave us no
opportunity of doing; but laying down a small mahogany case, which he
carried in his hand, and putting his arms akimbo, he loudly exclaimed
without any exordium, “Why, then, Cornet Jack Barrington, are you not
the greatest scoundrel that ever disgraced civilised society?”
-----
Footnote 48:
My brother’s _actual_ rank in _the army_.
-----
This quere of course was not answered in the affirmative by either of
us; and a scene of astonishment on the one side and increasing passion
on the other, baffled all common-place description: I must therefore
refer it to the imagination of my readers. The retort courteous was over
and over reiterated on both sides without the slightest attempt at any
_éclaircissement_.
At length the captain opened his mahogany case, and exhibited therein a
pair of what he called his “barking irons,” bright and glittering as if
both able and willing to commit most expertly any murder or murders they
might be employed in.
“You scoundrel!” vociferated the captain to the cornet, “only that your
bones were smashed by your horse, I would not leave a whole one this day
in your body. But I suppose your brother here will have no objection to
exchange shots _for_ you, and not keep me waiting till you are well
enough to be _stiffened_! Have you any objection (turning to me) ‘to
take a _crack_?’”
“A very considerable objection,” answered I; “first, because I never
fight without knowing _why_; and secondly, because my brother is not in
the habit of fighting by proxy.”
“Not know why?” roared the captain. “There! read that! Oh! I wish you
were hale and whole, cornet, that I might have the pleasure of a _crack_
with _you_!”
I lost no time in reading the letter; and at once perceived that my
unlucky relative had, in the flurry of his love, misdirected each of the
two epistles just now spoken of, and consequently informed “the divine
Alicia” that he could hold no further intercourse with her, &c.
A fit of convulsive laughter involuntarily seized me, which nothing
could restrain; and the captain meanwhile, nearly bursting with rage,
reinvited me to be shot at. My brother stood all the time like a ghost,
in more pain, and almost in as great a passion as our visitor. He was
unable to articulate; and the pillows fixed under each arm rendered him
one of the most grotesque figures that a painter could fancy.
When I recovered the power of speaking (which was not speedily), I
desired Tennyson to follow me to another room: he took up his
pistol-case, and expecting I was about to indulge him with a _crack_ or
two, seemed somewhat easier in mind and temper. I at once explained to
him the curious mistake, and without the least hesitation the captain
burst into a much stronger paroxysm of laughter than I had just escaped
from. Never did any officer in the king’s service enjoy a victory more
than Captain Edwards did this strange blunder. It was quite to his
taste, and on our proposing to make the invalid as happy as exhaustion
and fractures would admit of, a new scene, equally unexpected, but of
more serious consequences, turned up.
A ruddy, active and handsome country girl came to the door, and sprang
with rapidity from a pillion on which she had been riding behind a
good-looking rustic lad. Our landlady greeted her new customer with her
usual urbanity. “You’re welcome to these parts, miss,” said Mrs. Mahony:
“you stop to-night—to be sure you do:—what do you choose, miss?—Clean
out the settle-bed parlour:—the chickens and rashers, miss, are capital,
so they are.—Gassoon, do run and howld the lady’s beast; go, avourneen,
carry him in and wipe him well—do you hear? and throw a wisp of hay
before the poor brute. You rode hard, miss, so you did!”
“Oh! where’s the cornet?” cried the impatient maiden, totally
disregarding Mrs. Mahony: for it was Jenny —— herself, who had come
speedily from Philipstown to forestall the happy moments which my
bewildered brother had, in his letter to his Alicia, so delightfully
anticipated. Nothing could restrain her impatience; she burst into the
little parlour full on the astounded invalid, who was still standing
bolt upright, like a statue, in the very position wherein we had left
him. His loving Jenny, however, unconscious that his collarbones had
been disunited, rushed into his arms with furious affection. “Oh! my
dearest Jack!” cried she, “we _never_ part _no_ more! no, never—never!”
and tight, indeed, was the embrace wherewith the happy Jenny now
encircled the astonished cornet; but, alas! down came one of the
pillows! the arm, of course, closed; and one half of the left
collar-bone being as ignorant as its owner of the cause of so
obstreperous an embrace, and, wishing as it were to see what matter was
going forward in the world, instantly divorced itself from the other
half, and thrusting its ivory end through the flesh, skin, and
integuments (which had obstructed its egress), quickly appeared peeping
through the lover’s shirt.
The unfortunate inamorato could stand these accumulated shocks no
longer, and sank upon the feather-bed in a state of equal astonishment
and exhaustion, groaning pitiously.
Here I must again apply to the imagination of my reader for a true
picture of the succeeding scene. Fielding alone could render a detail
palatable; the surgeons were once more sent for to reset the collar: an
energetic kiss, which his Jenny had imprinted on the cornet’s nose,
again somewhat disturbed its new position, and conferred a pain so
acute, as to excite exclamations, by no means gentle in their nature,
from the unresisting sufferer.
Suffice it to say, Jenny was with much difficulty at length forced away
from her Jack, if not in a dead _faint_, at least in something extremely
_like_ one. An _éclaircissement_ took place so soon as she came round;
and the _compromise_, before hinted at, was ultimately effected.
Edwards asked a hundred pardons of my poor brother, who, worn out, and
in extreme pain, declared he would as soon die as live. In fine, it was
nearly a month more ere the cornet could travel to Dublin, and another
before he was well enough to throw himself at the feet of his dulcinea:
which ceremony was in due season succeeded by the wedding[49] I have
already given my account of, and which left me much more unaccountably
smitten than my more fiery brother.
-----
Footnote 49:
Irish marriages ran, some few years ago, an awkward risk of being
nullified _en masse_, by the decision of two English judges. In 1826,
I met, at Boulogne-sur-Mer, a young Hibernian nobleman, the eldest son
of an Irish peer, who had arrived there in great haste from Paris, and
expressed considerable though somewhat ludicrous trepidation on
account of a rumour that had reached him of his being
_illegitimatised_. In fact, the same dread seized upon almost all the
Irish of any family there.
“I have no time to lose,” said Lord ——, “for the packet is just
setting off, and I must go and inquire into these matters. By Heaven,”
added he, “I won’t leave one of the judges alive, if they take my
property and title! I am fit for _nothing else_, you _know_ I am not;
and I may as well be hanged as beggared!”
Scarce had his lordship, from whom I could obtain no explanation,
departed, when another scion of Irish nobility, the Honourable John
Leeson, son to the late Earl of Miltown, joined me on the pier.
“Barrington, have you seen to-day’s papers?” asked he.
“No,” I answered.
“Where was your father married?”
“In my grandfather’s house,” replied I, with some surprise.
“Then, by Jove,” exclaimed Leeson, “you are an _illegitimate_, and so
am I!—My father was married at home, at eight o’clock in the evening,
and that’s _fatal_. A general outcry has taken place among all the
Irish at the reading-room.”
He then proceeded to inform me of the real cause of the
consternation—and it was no trivial one. Two very able and honest
English judges (Bayley and Park), on trying a woman for _bigamy_, had
decided that, according to the English law, a marriage in a private
house, without special licence or in canonical hours, was _void_; and,
of course, the woman was acquitted, having been united to her first
husband in Ireland without those requisites. Had that decision stood,
it would certainly have rendered ninety-nine out of a hundred of the
Irish Protestants, men, women, and children—nobility, clergy, and
gentry—absolutely illegitimate; it was a very droll mistake of the
learned judges, but was on the merciful side of the question before
them; was soon amended, and no mischief whatsoever resulted from
it:—though it was said that a great number of husbands and wives were
extremely _disappointed_ at the judges altering their decision. I
seldom saw any couple married in church in Ireland; and in former
times the ceremony was generally performed between dinner and supper,
when people are supposed to be vastly more in love with each other
than in the middle of the day.
-----
Captain Tennyson Edwards subsequently ran away with the kind-hearted
Jenny, and in three or four years after, married one of the prettiest of
my six sisters. He was one of the drollest fellows in the world on some
occasions, and had once nearly ended his days similarly (though more
vulgarly) to the traditional catastrophe of the Duke of Clarence in the
Tower. He persuaded a very comely dairy-maid, at Old Court, that if she
would not abscond with him, he should end his life in despair; and she
would, in the eye of Heaven, be guilty of his _murder_: and to convince
her of his fixed determination to commit suicide for love of her, he put
his head into a very high churn of butter-milk, which was standing in
the dairy—when, the floor being slippery, his feet gave way, and he
pounced down, head-foremost and feet upward, clean into the churn; and
had not the gardener been at hand on the instant, he would have expired
by the most novel mode of extermination on record.