BLACK DALY.
Frank Jones received his letter just as he was about to leave
Castle Morony for the meet at Ballytowngal, the seat, as everybody
knows, of Sir Nicholas Bodkin. Ballytowngal is about two miles from
Claregalway, on the road to Oranmore. Sir Nicholas is known all
through the West of Ireland, as a sporting man, and is held in high
esteem. But there is, I think, something different in the estimation
which he now enjoys from that which he possessed twenty years ago.
He was then, as now, a Roman Catholic,--as were also his wife and
children; and, as a Roman Catholic, he was more popular with the
lower classes, and with the priests, who are their natural friends,
than with his brother grand-jurors of the country, who were, for the
most part, Protestants.
Sir Nicholas is now sixty years old, and when he came to the title at
thirty, he was regarded certainly as a poor man's friend. He always
lived on the estate. He rarely went up to Dublin, except for a
fortnight, when the hunting was over, and when he paid his respects
to the Lord Lieutenant. The house at Ballytowngal was said, in those
days, to be as well kept up as any mansion in County Galway. But the
saying came probably from those who were not intimate in the more
gloriously maintained mansions. Sir Nicholas had L5000 a year, and
though he did manage to pay his bills annually, spent every shilling
of it. He preserved his foxes loyally, and was quite as keen about
the fishing of a little river that he owned, and which ran down from
his demesne into Lough Corrib. He was particular also about his
snipe, and would boast that in a little spinney at Ballytowngal were
to be met the earliest woodcock found in the West of Ireland. He was
a thorough sportsman;--but a Roman Catholic--and as a Roman Catholic
he was hardly equal in standing to some of his Protestant neighbours.
He voted for Major Stackpoole, when Major Stackpoole stood for the
county on the Liberal interest, and was once requested to come
forward himself, and stand for the City as a Roman Catholic. This
he did not do, being a prudent man; but at that period, from twenty
to thirty years ago, he was certainly regarded as inferior to a
Protestant by many of the Protestant gentlemen of the country.
But things are changed now. Sir Nicholas's neighbours, such of them
at least that are Protestants, regard Sir Nicholas as equal to
themselves. They do not care much for his religion, but they know
that he is not a Home-Ruler, or latterly, since the Land League
sprang into existence, a Land Leaguer. He is, in fact, one of
themselves as a county gentleman, and the question of religion has
gone altogether into abeyance. Had you known the county thirty years
ago, and had now heard Sir Nicholas talking of county matters, you
would think that he was one of the old Protestants. It was so that
the rich people regarded him,--and so also the poor. But Sir Nicholas
had not varied at all. He liked to get his rents paid, and as long as
his tenants would pay them, he was at one with them. They had begun
now to have opinions of their own upon the subject, and he was at one
with them no longer.
Frank Jones had heard in Galway, that there was to be a difficulty
about drawing the Ballytowngal coverts. The hounds were to be
allowed to draw the demesne coverts, but beyond that they were to
be interrupted. Foxes seldom broke from Ballytowngal, or if they
did they ran to Moytubber. At Moytubber the hounds would probably
change,--or would do so if allowed to continue their sport in peace.
But at Moytubber the row would begin. Knowing this, Frank Jones was
anxious to leave his home in time, as he was aware that the hounds
would be carried on to Moytubber as quickly as possible. Black Daly
had sworn a solemn oath that he would draw Moytubber in the teeth of
every Home-Ruler and Land Leaguer in County Galway.
A word or two must be said descriptive of Black Daly, as he was
called, the master of the Galway hounds. They used to be called the
Galway blazers, but the name had nearly dropped out of fashion since
Black Daly had become their master, a quarter of a century since.
Who Black Daly was or whence he had come, many men, even in County
Galway, did not know. It was not that he had no property, but that
his property was so small, as to make it seem improbable that the
owner of it should be the master of the county hounds. But in truth
Black Daly lived at Daly's Bridge, in the neighbourhood of Castle
Blakeney, when he was supposed to be at home. And the house in which
he lived he had undoubtedly inherited from his father. But he was not
often there, and kept his kennels at Ahaseragh, five miles away from
Daly's Bridge. Much was not therefore known of Mr. Daly, in his own
house.
But in the field no man was better known, or more popular, if
thorough obedience is an element of popularity. The old gentry of
the county could tell why Mr. Daly had been put into his present
situation five-and-twenty years ago; but the manner of his election
was not often talked about. He had no money, and very few acres of
his own on which to preserve foxes. He had never done anything to
earn a shilling since he had been born, unless he may have been said
to have earned shillings by his present occupation. As he got his
living out of it, he certainly may have been said to have done so. He
never borrowed a shilling from any man, and certainly paid his way.
But if he told a young man that he ought to buy a horse the young
man certainly bought it. And if he told a young man that he must pay
a certain price, the young man generally paid it. But if the young
man were not ready with his money by the day fixed, that young man
generally had a bad time of it. Young men have been known to be
driven not only out of County Galway, but out of Ireland itself, by
the tone of Mr. Daly's voice, and by the blackness of his frown. And
yet it was said generally that neither young men nor old men were
injured in their dealings with Mr. Daly. "That horse won't be much
the worse for his splint, and he's worth L70 to you, because you can
ride him ten stone. You had better give me L70 for him." Then the
young man would promise the L70 in three months' time, and if he kept
his word, would swear by Black Daly ever afterwards. In this way Mr.
Daly sold a great many horses.
But he had been put into his present position because he hunted the
hounds, during the illness of a distant cousin, who was the then
master. The master had died, but the county had the best sport that
winter that it had ever enjoyed. "I don't see why I should not do
it, as well as another," Tom Daly had said. He was then known as Tom
Daly. "You've got no money," his cousin had said, the son of the old
gentleman who was just dead. It was well understood that the cousin
wished to have the hounds, but that he was thought not to have all
the necessary attributes. "I suppose the county means to pay for all
sport," said Tom. Then the hat went round, and an annual sum of L900
a year was voted. Since that the hounds have gone on, and the bills
have been paid; and Tom has raised the number of days' hunting to
four a week, or has lowered it to two, according to the amount of
money given. He makes no proposition now, but declares what he means
to do. "Things are dearer," he said last year, "and you won't have
above five days a fortnight, unless you can make the money up to
L1,200. I want L400 a day, and L400 I must have." The county had
then voted him the money in the plenitude of its power, and Daly had
hunted seven days a fortnight. But all the Galway world felt that
there was about to be a fall.
Black Daly was a man quite as dark as his sobriquet described him. He
was tall, but very thin and bony, and seemed not to have an ounce of
flesh about his face or body. He had large, black whiskers,--coarse
and jet black,--which did not quite meet beneath his chin. And he
wore no other beard, no tuft, no imperial, no moustachios; but when
he was seen before shaving on a morning, he would seem to be black
all over, and his hair was black, short, and harsh; and though black,
round about his ears it was beginning to be tinged with grey. He was
now over fifty years of age; but the hair on his head was as thick
as it had been when he first undertook the hounds. He had great dark
eyes in his head, deep down, so that they seemed to glitter at you
out of caverns. And above them were great, bushy eyebrows, every
hair of which seemed to be black, and harsh, and hard. His nose was
well-formed and prominent; but of cheeks he had apparently none.
Between his whiskers and his nose, and the corners of his mouth,
there was nothing but two hollow cavities. He was somewhat over six
feet high, but from his extraordinary thinness gave the appearance
of much greater height. His arms were long, and the waistcoat which
he wore was always long; his breeches were very long; and his boots
seemed the longest thing about him--unless his spurs seemed longer.
He had no flesh about him, and it was boasted of him that, in spite
of his length, and in spite of his height, he could ride under twelve
stone. Of himself, and of his doings, he never talked. They were
secrets of his own, of which he might have to make money. And no one
had a right to ask him questions. He did not conceive that it would
be necessary for a gentleman to declare his weight unless he were
about to ride a race. Now it was understood that for the last ten
years Black Daly had ridden no races.
He was a man of whom it might be said that he never joked. Though
his life was devoted in a peculiar manner to sport, and there may be
thought to be something akin between the amusements and the lightness
of life, it was all serious to him. Though he was bitter over it, or
happy; triumphant, or occasionally in despair--as when the money was
not forthcoming--he never laughed. It was all serious to him, and
apparently sad, from the first note of a hound in the early covert,
down to the tidings that a poor fox had been found poisoned near his
earth. He had much to do to find sport for the county on such limited
means, and he was always doing it.
He not only knew every hound in his pack, but he knew their ages,
their sires, and their dams; and the sires and the dams of most of
their sires and dams. He knew the constitution of each, and to what
extent their noses were to be trusted. "It's a very heavy scent
to-day," he would say, "because Gaylap carries it over the plough.
It's only a catching scent because the drops don't hang on the
bushes." His lore on all such matters was incredible, but he would
never listen to any argument. A man had a right to his own opinion;
but then the man who differed from him knew nothing. He gave out his
little laws to favoured individuals; not by way of conversation,
for which he cared nothing, but because it might be well that the
favoured individual should know the truth on that occasion.
As a man to ride he was a complete master of his art. There was
nothing which a horse could do with a man on his back, which Daly
could not make him do; and when he had ridden a horse he would know
exactly what was within his power. But there was no desire with him
for the showing off of a horse. He often rode to sell a horse, but
he never seemed to do so. He never rode at difficult places unless
driven to do so by the exigencies of the moment. He was always quiet
in the field, unless when driven to express himself as to the faults
of some young man. Then he could blaze forth in his anger with great
power. He was constantly to be seen trotting along a road when hounds
were running, because he had no desire to achieve for himself a
character for hard riding. But he was always with his hounds when he
was wanted, and it was boasted of him that he had ridden four days a
week through the season on three horses, and had never lamed one of
them. He was rarely known to have a second horse out, and when he did
so, it was for some purpose peculiar to the day's work. On such days
he had generally a horse to sell.
It is hardly necessary to say that Black Daly was an unmarried man.
No one who knew him could conceive that he should have had a wife.
His hounds were his children, and he could have taught no wife to
assist him in looking after them, with the constant attention and
tender care which was given to them by Barney Smith, his huntsman. A
wife, had she seen to the feeding of the numerous babies, would have
given them too much to eat, and had she not undertaken this care,
she would have been useless at Daly's Bridge. But Barney Smith was
invaluable; double the amount of work got usually from a huntsman
was done by him. There was no kennel man, no second horseman, no
stud-groom at the Ahaseragh kennels. It may be said that Black Daly
filled all these positions himself, and that in each Barney Smith
was his first lieutenant. Circumstances had given him the use of the
Ahaseragh kennels, which had been the property of his cousin, and
circumstances had not enabled him to build others at Daly's Bridge.
Gradually he had found it easier to move himself than the hounds. And
so it had come to pass that two rooms had been prepared for him close
to the kennels, and that Mr. Barney Smith gave him such attendance as
was necessary. Of strictly personal attendance Black Daly wanted very
little; but the discomforts of that home, while one pair of breeches
were supposed to be at Daly's Bridge, and the others at Ahaseragh,
were presumed by the world at large to be very grievous.
But the personal appearance of Mr. Daly on hunting mornings, was not
a matter of indifference. It was not that he wore beautiful pink
tops, or came out guarded from the dust by little aprons, or had his
cravat just out of the bandbox, or his scarlet coat always new, and
in the latest fashion, nor had his hat just come from the shop in
Piccadilly with the newest twist to its rim. But there was something
manly, and even powerful about his whole apparel. He was always the
same, so that by men even in his own county, he would hardly have
been known in other garments. The strong, broad brimmed high hat,
with the cord passing down his back beneath his coat, that had known
the weather of various winters; the dark, red coat, with long swallow
tails, which had grown nearly black under many storms; the dark, buff
striped waistcoat, with the stripes running downwards, long, so as to
come well down over his breeches; the breeches themselves, which were
always of leather, but which had become nearly brown under the hands
of Barney Smith or his wife, and the mahogany top-boots, of which the
tops seemed to be a foot in length, could none of them have been worn
by any but Black Daly. His very spurs must have surely been made for
him, they were in length and weight; and general strength of leather,
so peculiarly his own. He was unlike other masters of hounds in this,
that he never carried a horn; but he spoke to his hounds in a loud,
indistinct chirruping voice, which all County Galway believed to be
understood to every hound in the park.
One other fact must be told respecting Mr. Daly. He was a
Protestant--as opposed to a Roman Catholic. No one had ever known
him go to church, or speak a word in reference to religion. He was
equally civil or uncivil to priest and parson when priest or parson
appeared in the field. But on no account would he speak to either
of them if he could avoid it. But he had in his heart a thorough
conviction that all Roman Catholics ought to be regarded as
enemies by all Protestants, and that the feeling was one entirely
independent of faith and prayerbooks, or crosses and masses. For him
fox-hunting--fox-hunting for others--was the work of his life, and
he did not care to meddle with what he did not understand. But he
was a Protestant, and Sir Nicholas Bodkin was a Roman Catholic, and
therefore an enemy--as a dog may be supposed to declare himself a
dog, and a cat a cat, if called upon to explain the cause for the old
family quarrel.
Now there had come a cloud over his spirit in reference to the state
of his country. He could see that the quarrel was not entirely one
between Protestant and Catholic as it used to be, but still he could
not get it out of his mind, but that the old causes were producing in
a different way their old effects. Whiteboys, Terryalts, Ribbonmen,
Repeaters, Physical-Forcemen, Fenians, Home-Rulers, Professors of
Dynamite, and American-Irish, were, to his thinking, all the same.
He never talked much about it, because he did not like to expose his
ignorance; but his convictions were not the less formed. It was the
business of a Protestant to take rent, and of a Roman Catholic to pay
rent. There were certain deviations in this ordained rule of life,
but they were only exceptions. The Roman Catholics had the worst of
this position, and the Protestants the best. Therefore the Roman
Catholics were of course quarrelling with it, and therefore the Roman
Catholics must be kept down. Such had been Mr. Daly's general outlook
into life. But now the advancing evil of the time was about to fall
even upon himself, and upon his beneficent labours, done for the
world at large. It was whispered in County Galway that the people
were about to rise and interfere with fox-hunting! It may be imagined
that on this special day Mr. Daly's heart was low beneath his
black-striped waistcoat, as he rode on his way to draw the coverts at
Ballytowngal.
At the cross-roads of Monivea he met Peter Bodkin, the eldest son
of Sir Nicholas. Now Peter Bodkin had quarrelled long and very
bitterly with his father. Every acre of the property at Ballytowngal
was entailed upon him, and Peter had thought that under such
circumstances his father was not doing enough for him. The quarrel
had been made up, but still the evil rankled in Peter's bosom, who
was driven to live with his wife and family on L500 a year; and had
found himself hardly driven to keep himself out of the hands of the
Jews. His father had wished him to follow some profession, but this
had been contrary to Peter's idea of what was becoming. But though he
had only L500 a year, and five children, he did manage to keep two
horses, and saw a good deal of hunting.
And among all the hunting men in County Galway he was the one who
lived on the closest terms of intimacy with Black Daly. For, though
he was a Roman Catholic, his religion did not trouble him much; and
he was undoubtedly on the same side with Daly in the feuds that were
coming on the country. Indeed, he and Daly had entertained the same
feelings for some years; for, in the quarrels which had been rife
between the father and son, Mr. Daly had taken the son's part, as far
as so silent a man can be said to have taken any part at all.
"Well, Peter." "Well, Daly," were the greetings, as the two men met;
and then they rode on together in silence for a mile. "Have you heard
what the boys are going to do?" asked the master. Peter shook his
head. "I suppose there's nothing in it?"
"I fear there is."
"What will they do?" asked Mr. Daly.
"Just prevent your hunting."
"If they touch me, or either of the men, by God! I'll shoot some of
them." Then he put his hand into his pocket, as much as to explain a
pistol was there. After that the two men rode on in silence till they
came to the gates of Ballytowngal.