PARENTAGE AND EARLY YEARS
My father, Peter Bodkin Hussey, was for a long time a barrister at the
Irish Bar, practising in the Four Courts, where more untruths are spoken
than anywhere else in the three kingdoms, except in the House of Commons
during an Irish debate. All law in Ireland is a grave temptation to
lying, and the greatest number of Courts produced a stupendous amount of
mendacity--or it was so in earlier times, at all events.
Did you ever hear the tale of the old woman who came to Daniel
O'Connell, outside the Four Courts, as he was walking down the steps,
and said to him:--
'Would your honour be so kind as to tell me the name of an honest
attorney?'
The Liberator stopped, scratched his head in a perplexed way, and
replied:--
'Well now, ma'am, you bate me intoirely.'
My father had red hair, and was very impetuous. Therefore he was
christened 'Red Precipitate' by Jerry Kellegher.
This legal luminary was a noted wit even at the Irish Bar of that time,
a confraternity where humour was almost as rampant as
creditors--irresponsible fun, and a light purse are generally allied;
your wealthy fellow has too much care for his gold to have spirits to be
mirthful.
The tales about him are endless. Here are just a few I have heard from
my father's lips.
Jerry had a cousin, a wine merchant, who supplied the Bar mess, and a
complaint was lodged that the bottles were very small.
To which Jerry retorted:--
'You idiot, don't you know they shrink in the washing,' which satisfied
the grumbler. And that always seemed to me the strangest part of the
story.
In those days religious feeling ran pretty high--I will not go so far as
to say it has entirely died down to-day--and the usual Protestant toast
was:--
'The Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender.'
Now, Jerry was a Roman Catholic, none the less earnest because he had a
merry way with him. On a certain Friday he was seen to be fasting by a
very foppish barrister, who thought a great deal of himself.
He remarked to Jerry, with unnecessary impertinence:--
'Sir, it appears you have some of the Pope in your stomach.'
To which Jerry, quick as a pistol-shot, retorted:--
'And you have the whole of the Pretender in your head,' after which
there was the devil to pay.
There was a certain Chancellor in Ireland who was born a few years after
his father and mother had separated. As he did not like Jerry, he used
to make a great fuss about how he should pronounce his name. At last in
Court one day he burst out:--
'Pray tell me what you wish me to call you--Mr. Kellegher, or Mr.
Kellaire?'
'Call me anything you like, my lud, so long as you call me born in
wedlock.'
The Chancellor did not score that time.
At one time there were grave complaints made about the light-hearted way
in which Jerry handled his cases, and his practice fell off. He was
conversing with a very stupid judge, lately elevated to the Bench, and
observed:--
'It's a very extraordinary world: you have risen by your gravity, and I
have fallen by my levity.'
He had a son who, in my time, had a large practice at the Bar, but I
never came across him, nor did I ever hear that there was anything
remarkable about him, except that he was not so witty as his father,
which was not wonderful.
After all, as Jerry was before my own experience, I must not delay over
him, so I will only give one more tale about him, and pass on.
When Lord Avonmore got his peerage for voting for the Union, he had his
patent of nobility read out at a dinner-party, and it commenced,
'George, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.'
'Stop,' cried Jerry, 'I object to that. The consideration is set out too
early in the deed.'
This long digression over, I revert to my father about whose respectable
practice at the Four Courts I know nothing except that he allowed others
to become judges, and did not find solicitors putting his services up to
auction.
By the death of his elder brother, he succeeded to a property, near
Dingle, on which he went to live and then got married, which was the
wisest thing that he could do.
My mother was Mary Hickson, and her descent was this wise.
The Murrays were said to have come to Scotland from Moravia in the first
century; and a pretty bulky history of the clan reveals as much truth
about them as the author cared to put in when tired of inventing less
probable facts. Sir Walter Murray, Lord of Drumshegrat, came to Ireland
with Edward de Bruce and was killed in battle, leaving three sons, one
of whom, christened Andrew, settled in County Down. Some of his
descendants migrated to Bantry, where, in 1670, William Murray married
Ann Hornswell, and was succeeded by his third son George, who was in
turn succeeded by his eldest son William, who married Anne Grainger. Of
the marriage, there was only one daughter Judith, who married Robert
Hickson, heir to the property.
They had five sons and two daughters, the younger of whom married Sir
William Cox, and the elder my father.
The superior of my dear mother never drew the breath of life. She lived
until I was twenty-five, and I never met any man who could say more than
I could for my mother, though equalled by what my own sons could say of
theirs, and she too came of the same stock, for I married my first
cousin, Julia Agnes Hickson. It is said no man is thoroughly happy until
he is suitably married, an opinion I absolutely endorse; but happiness
so great as my married life is not of public interest, and if it were, I
should not wear my heart on my sleeve for general inspection. Any
tribute from me to my dear wife would be superfluous; the devoted love
of our children has been the endorsement by the next generation of the
feelings which I have always felt towards her.
She was the daughter of my mother's eldest brother, John Hickson, called
the Sovereign of Dingle. He had powers to collect customs, to hold a
court, and to try cases in much the same way that a lord provost had.
On one occasion when a case was to be tried, two attorneys appeared from
the town of Tralee, about thirty miles off. Now John Hickson had his own
ideas about the attorneys of those days--ideas such as all honest men
had, but dared not express. So he sent a crier through the town to say
that the court was adjourned for a fortnight. When the appointed day
arrived, the attorneys arrived also, so again the melodious tones of the
crier proclaimed through the town that the court was adjourned for yet
another fortnight, Captain Hickson remarking to his wife that he was not
going to be helped to administer justice by those who earned their
living on injustice. The attorneys gave it up in despair, leaving
Captain Hickson to lay down the law as he liked, and to do him justice,
his ideas were more conducive to peace and order than the arguments of
Irish attorneys generally are.
He was loved and revered by the people, so that when the cholera raged
in 1833 and 1834, and the constabulary were ordered to go into the
houses to remove the corpses (this to prevent the people 'waking' the
dead, and so spreading the contagion), they dared not enter the cabins
unless Captain Hickson went with them, as the people were so enraged at
their dead being molested that they would have killed the police.
Fortunately Captain Hickson had enough moral influence to make the
people obey the law.
In the eighties he would have been shot in the back by some scoundrel
who had primed himself with Dutch courage from adulterated whisky.
He raised a Yeomanry Corps at the time of the Whiteboys to guard the
country against these lawless bands, and against the dreaded French
invasion. This regiment was called the Dingle Yeomanry, and the tales
about it are many.
On one occasion when Captain Hickson was in London, the general from
Dublin inspected the corps. In the absence of the commanding officer,
his brother was ordered to parade the battalion, and being a nervous
young man, he completely forgot all the words of command, so to the
unconcealed amusement of the old martinet from the capital, he
shouted:--
'Boys, do as you always do.'
It says well for the discipline of the regiment that they did not
implicitly obey the order.
His mother, this Mrs. Judith Hickson, was the only one of my
grand-parents I ever saw, and very little impression she has left on my
memory, except a notion that she had less sense of humour than pertains
to most Irishwomen by the blessing of God and their own mother wit.
My father was a Roman Catholic, and my mother a Protestant. By the terms
of the marriage settlement, we were all brought up in her faith, which
occasioned a tremendous row at that time, and nowadays would never be
tolerated by the priests.
All the same my father was an obstinate man, not disposed to care much
for the whole College of Cardinals, and indifferent if he were cursed
with bell and book. Of course he was not a good-tempered man, or he
would not have justified his nickname of Red Precipitate, but he spared
the rod with me, and failed to keep me in order. I was the youngest of a
pretty large family and the pet into the bargain.
My eldest brother, John, was drowned at St. Malo. He was unmarried, and
his profession was to do nothing as handsomely as he could.
James was in the 13th Light Dragoons, and subsequently in the 11th. He
saw no service, and was an excellent soldier at mess and off duty. I am
not qualified to speak with authority about his fulfilment of the
trumpery trivialities which fill up garrison life, but here is one
anecdote about him.
Soon after Lord Cardigan took command of the 13th Light Dragoons, a
great many of the officers left the corps, and a man wrote to the papers
to say that this was chiefly due to the great expense of the mess.
My brother retorted in print that for his part the reason was due to its
being 'incompatible with my feelings as a gentleman to remain in the
regiment as it is equally impossible to exchange out of a regiment that
has the undeserved misfortune to be commanded by his lordship.'
Edward lived at Dingle, and was much liked by the people there. He was
an active magistrate and a conscientious man. He married and left two
sons, one in the Horse Artillery and the other a colonel in the
Engineers. They have all joined the great majority.
Robert, who chose to be an army surgeon, died in India, leaving me
without a relation in the world of my own name.
It reminds me of the story in _Charles O'Malley_ about the old family in
which it was hereditary not to have any children. However, I altered
that by having eleven of my own, two sons, John and Maurice, and four
daughters being alive, at the present time. More power to them say I, in
the current phrase of good-will in Kerry.
My sister Mary died at Bath when I was born. It was her health which
prevented me from being by birth what I am at heart, a Kerry man.
Ellen was married to Robert, elder brother of the late Knight of Kerry,
and her grand-daughter is married to Colonel Thorneycroft of Spion Kop
fame.
Ellen's sister, Julia, married Sir Peter FitzGerald, Knight of Kerry.
The two therefore married brothers, and if there had been any more they
might have done the same.
I suppose I ought to give the date of my birth, but despite all the
efforts of those in Ireland, who loved me so much that they became
active agents to convey me to heaven, I cannot yet give you the date of
my death.
My friend, Mr. Townshend Trench, is, I believe, writing a book to prove
the world will come to an end in about thirty years' time, but that will
see me out, and those then alive may discover that the Great Landlord
has given the tenants an extension of the lease of the earth.
I was born on December 17, 1824, and I have none of those infantile
recollections which are such an insult on the general attention when put
in print.
Still my earliest memory is so characteristic of much that was to follow
that I set it down.
The very first thing I remember is being placed on the seat of a trap
beside the local R.M. (Resident Magistrate), and thus going out,
escorted by a party of soldiers, to collect tithes.
I clapped my hands with glee, but an old woman by the road-side said
that it was a shame to take out that innocent babe on such bloodthirsty
work.
I could ride before I could walk, and was always fond of the exercise.
What Irishman is not?
My taste for this was fostered by my father, who had broken his leg when
young, and not only disliked walking, but had a slight limp, which did
not prevent him being in the saddle for many hours each day.
As a child, I led a fresh, natural, out-of-doors, healthy life, exposed
to wind and rain, and all the better for both. There are very few trees
about Dingle, and I quite agree with the remark of an American that it
was the most open country he had ever seen.
I was always bathing, but I never got drowned, not even in liquor,
although I have sat with some of the best in that capacity. I have
myself been pretty temperate in everything, to which I attribute my
longevity. And yet I am not sure that any rule can be laid down in this
respect, for I have known men who saturated themselves in alcohol until
they ought to have been kept out of sight of all decent people live
longer than those that have kept straight in every way.
In proof of this, let me quote the delightful account of a centagenarian
out of Smith's _History of Kerry_, a book already referred to, and which
can now be finally put back on its shelf, dry as dust, as Carlyle might
say, 'but pregnant with food for thought, ay, and for grim
mirth,'--those are not exactly the words of the Sage of Chelsea, but
just have the rub of his tongue about them.
'Mr. Daniel MacCarty died in February 1751,' as the account said, 'in
the 112th year of his age. He lived during his whole life in the barony
of Iveragh, and buried four wives. He married a fifth in the
eighty-fourth year of his age, and she but a girl of fourteen, by whom
he had several children. He was always a very healthy man, no cold ever
affecting him, and he could not bear the warmth of a shirt at night, but
put it under his pillow. He drank for many of the last years of his life
great quantities of rum and brandy, which he called _the naked truth_;
and if, in compliance to other gentlemen, he drank claret or punch, he
always took an equal quantity of spirits to qualify those liquors: this
he called a wedge. No man ever saw him spit. His custom was to walk
eight or ten miles in a winter's morning over mountains with greyhounds
and finders, and he seldom failed to bring home a brace of hares. He was
an innocent man, and inherited the social virtues of the antient
Milesians. He was of a florid complexion, looked amazingly well for a
person of his age and manners of life, for his use of spirituous liquors
was prodigious, a custom that much prevails in these baronies.'
Indeed, no one who was slightly acquainted with the characteristics of
the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Kerry would suggest that total
abstinence was even to-day their predominant virtue.
It is the fashion to say that it is a good thing to be one of a large
family. From a financial point of view I am quite certain that the
reverse is preferable, and as I was the youngest of nine--two others
besides those I mentioned, James and Anne, coming to early demises--I
received as many kicks and cuffs from my brethren as I did halfpence and
affection from my parents. So, like Thackeray, as a child I sympathised
with Lord MacTurk who wished to cut off the heads of his brethren. Now I
have survived them all, and I fondly regret the sounds of voices that
are still.
But as I sit in my arm-chair and ruminate over the past, which every old
man must do in the intervals of reading the _Times_, going to the club,
or losing his money by careful attention to speculation, I have the
consolation of remembering that I did as much mischief as any other
child. To be a really good child means that the animal is a prig or
unhealthy. To-day I am fond of all my grandchildren, but the one I like
best is the one which proves himself or herself the naughtiest for the
moment.
This is a hard saying for parents, and not a good precept for the young,
but there is solid truth in it and a bit of common-sense too, for it is
best to get the original sin out in the years of innocence.