MYSELF, SOME FACTS, AND MANY STORIES
In 1850 I became agent to the Colthurst property, which consisted of
most of the parish of Ballyvourney, one estate alone containing about
twenty-three thousand acres. The rental was then over £4600. There were
only three slated houses on the property, hardly any out-buildings, only
seven miles of road under contract, and about twenty acres planted.
By 1880 the landlord had expended £30,000 on improvements, there were
over one hundred slated houses, about sixty miles of roads, and over
four hundred acres planted.
Under the Land Act of 1881 the rent was reduced to £3600.
That was the encouragement officially given to the landlord for
assisting in the improvement of his property.
From the time of Moses downwards, the policy of all Governments has been
to give relief to the debtor. By the Encumbered Estate Act, which was
passed just after the famine, special relief was given to the creditor.
What the English view was may be taken from the _Times_--
'In a few years more, a Celtic Irishman will be as rare in Connemara as
is the Red Indian on the shores of Manhattan.'
That is to say, English capital was at last to flow into Ireland for the
purchase of encumbered estates, but the anticipation of course was
erroneous.
English capital was placed for preference in Turkish and in Egyptian
bonds, to the great loss of all concerned. As for Ireland, out of the
first twenty millions realised by the new Court, over seventeen was
Irish money; and at the outset there was an inevitable downward tendency
of prices which involved heavy depreciation.
Credit was destroyed in Ireland, and every man who owed a shilling was
utterly ruined. Had the Government given loans at a reasonable rate of
interest, which would have amply repaid them, all this could have been
saved. As it was, properties were sold like chairs and tables at a
paltry auction, and in thousands of cases the judge expressed himself
satisfied that the rent could have been considerably increased.
I knew one unfortunate shopkeeper who paid £6000 for a property under
these circumstances; and in place of an increase of rent, the
confiscators--that is to say the commissioners imposed by Mr.
Gladstone--took a third of the rental off him.
Those purchasers who were English conceived when they bought properties
that they would get as much from them as the solvent tenants were
willing to pay. The legislation of Mr. Gladstone in coalition with the
blunderbuss soon put an end to the pleasing delusion. It was one more of
the English mistakes about Ireland, where, when the tenant is content to
pay, the British Government and the Land League both combine to prevent
him from offering a reasonable rent to a landlord.
As a matter of fact, even the most seditionary organs confessed that the
tenants gained little and lost much by the change from the old type of
landlord to the new, for the latter, being practical men, had no
sympathy for the man who was permanently behindhand with his rent. And
no one can say that this habitual arrear was a healthy stimulus to the
moral wellbeing of the tenant himself, though he felt aggrieved at its
being checked.
There is not the least need to sketch how I gradually became one of the
largest land agents in Ireland. It has been published in other books,
and would only prove wearisome if set out in detail in this volume. So I
will merely observe that only two years after the big Fenian rising, as
it was called--which I should describe as being composed of a rabble of
less importance than the ragamuffins led by Wat Tyler--so little was I
impressed by its magnitude that I went to live at Edenburn. There I laid
out a lot of money in rebuilding the house, spending over £2000 in
additions. This was most idiotic of me, because I had not counted on the
infernal devices of Mr. Gladstone to render Ireland uninhabitable for
peaceful and law-abiding folk.
When I first settled down there, labourers were working at eightpence or
tenpence a day. Now the lowest rate is two shillings. The labourer
rectified this rate by emigration, and if the farmers, who could more
advantageously have emigrated, had done so, the cry for compulsory
reduction would never have arisen.
Thus far I have dealt with facts and myself as concerned in them, but I
propose now to relate a few stories, a thing more congenial to my
temperament than any other form of conversational exercise. Whether it
will equally commend itself to the reader is a matter on which I, as an
aged novice in literature, though hopeful, am of course uncertain.
Indeed I am in exactly the predicament of a farmer's wife who was asked
by the Dowager Lady Godfrey, after a month of marriage, how she liked
her husband.
'I had plenty of recommendation with him,' was the reply, 'but I have
not had enough trial of him yet to say for sure.'
There is a story about a honeymoon couple at Killarney which is worth
telling.
The bridegroom had a valet, a good, faithful fellow, long in his
service, but talkative, a thing his master loathed. He said to him:--
'John, I've often told you to hold your tongue about my affairs. This
time I emphatically mean it. If you tell the people in the hotel that I
am on my honeymoon, I'll sack you on the spot.'
So John promised to be as silent as the grave, but on the third
afternoon, as the happy pair were ascending the stairs of the Victoria
Hotel, they saw by the giggles and smirks of the chambermaids that their
secret had been discovered.
The bridegroom rang his bell and went for John in a towering passion,
but the fellow held his ground.
'Is it not unfair the way you are taking on? Sure the other servants did
ask me if you were on your honeymoon, but I was even with them, for I
told them "devil a bit, your honour was not going to marry the lady
until next month."'
I do not know how that alliance turned out, but the happy pair left the
hotel early next morning.
I can tell rather more about the matrimonial experiences of an
Archdeacon at Cork, who married firstly a woman who was very fond of
society. She died, and he then married another, who grew very stout. She
also died, and the indefatigable cleric married as his third experiment
a widow cursed with a very violent temper.
He was one day chaffed on the practical demonstration he had given to
the Romish doctrine of the celibacy of the Church, when he said:--
'After all they were a trial, for I married the world, the flesh, and
lastly the devil, and now I tremble whenever I think of recognition in
eternity.'
This Cork story comes naturally, because at that time I was living near
Cork and very happily too.
Now and again we took trips up to Dublin when I had business there.
I am not much of a playgoer, but in Dublin we always went to the theatre
on the chance of hearing some of the proverbial wit of its gallery.
On one occasion, a lady in the play, when her lover had had some doubt
of her fidelity, exclaimed:--
'Would there were a mirror in my side that you could see into my heart.'
Whereupon a voice from the gods shouted:--
'Would not a pain [_i.e._ pane] in your stomach do as well. I have one
myself.'
Lord Chancellor Brady was of a notoriously convivial temperament, which
did not prevent him being an admirable lawyer when he would allow his
wits to get their heads above water, so to speak, though it was little
enough that he used to dilute his spirits.
When Jenny Lind sang in some Italian opera, he occupied a seat in the
vice-regal box, and gazed at her through a portentously enormous
_lorgnette_.
This was too much for a wag in the gallery, who yelled:--
'Brady, me jewel, I'm glad to see you're fond of a big glass yet.'
At the time of the Crimean War, John Reynolds, a very energetic citizen,
was perpetually raising the question about the dangerous practice of
driving outside cars from the side instead of the box--in which he was
undoubtedly right.
When he went to the theatre, a gallery boy shouted:--
'Three cheers for Alderman John Reynolds the hero of Kars.'
The Lord Mayor of the period who sat beside him was a tallow chandler,
and the same spokesman shouted out:--
'Three cheers for his grease the Lord Mayor just back from the races at
Tallagh.'
That sort of thing seems to be particularly indigenous, the only
parallel being when undergraduates or medical students get gathered
together.
The eloquence of Irish members in the House of Commons has really
nothing to do with my reminiscences, but I remember one occasion when it
was uncommonly well excelled by a stolid Englishman.
Fergus O'Connor--an Irishman, as his name betrays--was an ardent
Chartist, and before the Reform Bill was introduced he said in the House
that he had been accused of being a personal enemy of King William's.
This was quite untrue, for if there were only good laws he did not care
if the devil were King of England.
Sir Robert Peel replied:--
'When the honourable member is gratified by seeing the sovereign of his
choice on the throne of these realms, I hope he will enjoy, and I am
sure he will deserve, the confidence of the Crown.'
Whilst I am anecdotal, perhaps I had better say something about books
into which my stories have been pressed. I was always given to telling
tales, but of course my great time was when Lord Morris and I would sit
trying to cap one another. If he were ever too idle to remember an
anecdote of his own, he would reel off one of mine: as for his own fund
of stories and humour ever approaching exhaustion, that was not to be
thought of. He was far and away the wittiest man I ever met, and if I do
not quote one of his tales on this page it is because no single sample
can show the superb richness of his vintage, and more than one of his
brand will be found scattered in the present volume.
I gave a good many anecdotes to my dear old friend Mr. W.R. Le
Fanu--cheeriest of fishermen, kindest of jolly good fellows--for his
garrulous book. He observes in his preface that he makes his first
attempt at writing in his eight-and-seventieth year. I am nearly
twenty-four months his senior when thus far on the road of these
reminiscences. I also echo another phrase of his:--
'I trust I have said nothing to hurt the feelings of any of my
fellow-countrymen.'
Just one quotation--and only a little one--which is not mine, but the
warning which Sheridan Le Fanu, author of that capital novel _Uncle
Silas_, gave in the _Dublin University Magazine_ against matrimony:--
'Marriage is like the smallpox. A man may have it mildly, but he
generally carries the marks of it with him to his grave.'
And very true too in his division of an Irishman's life into three
parts:--
'The first is that in which he is plannin' and conthrivin' all sorts of
villainy and rascality; that is the period of youth and innocence. The
second is that in which he is puttin' into practice the villainy and
rascality he contrived before; that is the prime of life or the flower
of manhood. The third and last period is that in which he is makin' his
soul and preparin' for another world; that is the period of dotage.'
Shakespeare's seven ages of man may have been more poetical, but it does
not betray a closer grip of the Irish temperament.
My other appearance as a literary ghost or rather as an anonymous
contributor was when I supplied Mrs. O'Connell with stories for _The
Last Count of the Irish Brigade_. That was about twenty years ago, and
therefore long after the death of the hero who was uncle to the
Liberator.
The writer was a daughter of Charles Bianconi, the originator of all the
mail-cars in Ireland, who owned at one time sixteen hundred horses, and
always laughed at the idea of any violence on the part of the peasantry,
pointing out that though his cars daily covered four thousand miles in
twenty-two counties, no injury was ever done to any of his property.
Mrs. O'Connell was married to a nephew of the great Dan, and he
represented Kerry in Parliament for nearly thirty years. He was an
intimate friend of Thackeray's, and gave him all the idioms of his
delightful Irish ballads. This O'Connell was a clever, amusing fellow,
and precious idle into the bargain.
I remember one story he told me.
Mrs. MacCarthy, near Millstreet, had a son, a small proprietor, and he
got married. The mother-in-law lived with the daughter-in-law, who had
rather grand ideas, and set up as parlour-maid in the house a raw lass
just taken from the dairy.
One afternoon old Mrs. MacCarthy saw the parish priest coming to call,
and told the girl if he asked for Mrs. MacCarthy to say she was not in
but the dowager was.
Now the maid had never heard the word dowager in her life, but thought
she would make a shot for it, so when his reverence asked if Mrs.
MacCarthy was at home, she blurted out:--
'No, sir, but the badger is.'
And to her dying day the relic of deceased MacCarthy went by the name of
'the badger.'
Now it is really time I related how my own beauty was spoilt, by
breaking my nose in 1858.
I was racing the present Knight of Kerry and a young gunner named
Hickson--no relation--on the Strand, when the horse of the latter
collided with my own, and they both fell at the same time. He was a
loose rider, and being shot off some distance from his animal picked
himself up unhurt. I had always a tight grip, so I got entangled in the
saddle which twisted round, and my mare almost literally tore off my
face with her hind hoof.
I walked back a quarter of a mile, trying to hold my face on to my head
with my hand; and in a month's time I was able to get about again, which
the doctor said was one of the quickest cases of healing he had ever
known.
But I was absolutely unrecognised by my acquaintances when I reappeared,
and Mr. Dillon the R.M. actually took me for a walk in Tralee to see the
town, thinking I was a stranger, a situation the fun of which I heartily
appreciated.
Before that infernal gallop I had a hooked nose like the Duke of
Wellington; and it's lucky I got married when I did, for no one would
have had me afterwards, though my own wife always says 'for shame' if I
make the remark in her presence, God bless her.
When I went to the Abbey of St. Denis, near Paris, I told the verger I
was very anxious to see the likeness of the saint who had walked for six
miles with his head in his hand, because I was the nearest living
counterpart, having walked a quarter of a mile with my face in mine.
Hickson was universally congratulated on his lucky escape. He went out
to India and was dead in eighteen months, and here am I at eighty with
half my face and some of my health still in spite of the attentive care
of my family and the doctor.
My present doctor is a capital fellow, and when he comes to see me he
laughs so much at my stories that I always think he ought to take me
half price. Instead of that he regards me as an animated laboratory for
his interesting chemical experiments; but I had the best of him last
time I was laid up, for I made him take a dose of the filthy compound he
had ordered for me the previous day.
First he said he wouldn't, then he said he couldn't, but I said what was
not poison for the patient could not hurt the physician; and in the end
he had to swallow the dose, making far more fuss over its nasty taste
than I did. But I noted that he at once wrote me a new prescription,
which was as sweet as any advertised syrup, and further, that he
arranged his next visit should be just after I finished the bottle.
However, that is years and years after the time of which I am treating.
Yet I am tempted to anticipate, because the mention of Edenburn earlier
in this chapter suggests a quaint individual about whom a few
observations may be made.
Bill Hogan was our factotum. He was stable-boy, steward, ladies'-maid,
and professional busybody, as well as a bit of a character, though he
possessed none worth mentioning.
When we were packing up to leave Edenburn, my wife was watching him fill
two casks, one with home-made jam, the other with china.
Called away to luncheon, she found on her return both casks securely
nailed down.
'Oh, you should not have done that, Bill,' she said, 'for now we shan't
know which contains which.'
'I thought of that, ma'am,' replies Bill, 'so I have written S for
chiney on the one, and G for jam on the other.'
Bill's orthography was obviously original.
So was the drive he took with a certain cheery guest of mine one Sabbath
morning.
The said guest desired more refreshment than he was likely to get at
that early hour at Edenburn, so he drove into Tralee, ostensibly to
church, and told Bill to have the car round at the club at one.
'Well,' narrated Bill afterwards, 'out came the Captain from the club,
having a few drinks taken, and up he got on the car with my help, but at
the corner of Denny Street he pulled up at the whisky store, and said we
must drink the luck of the road. Well we drank the luck at every house
on the way out of the town, and presently in the road down came the
mare, pitching the Captain over the hedge, and marking her own knees, as
well as breaking the shaft. At last we all got home somehow, and there
in the yard was the master, looking us all three up and down as though
he were going to commit us all from the Bench. Then a twinkle came into
his eye, and he said as mild as a dove to the Captain, "I see by the
look of her knees you've been taking the mare to say her prayers."'