A new departure--A Dublin hotel in the "sixties"--The Irish mail
service--The wonderful old paddle mail-boats--The convivial waiters of
the Munster--The Viceregal Lodge-Indians and pirates--The imagination
of youth--A modest personal ambition--Death-warrants; imaginary and
real--The Fenian outbreak of 1866-7--The Abergele railway accident--A
Dublin Drawing-Room--Strictly private ceremonials--Some of the
amenities of the Chapel Royal--An unbidden spectator of the State
dinners--Irish wit--Judge Keogh--Father Healy--Happy Dublin knack of
nomenclature--An unexpected honour and its cause--Incidents of the
Fenian rising--Dr. Hatchell--A novel prescription--Visit of King
Edward--Gorgeous ceremonial but a chilly drive--An anecdote of Queen
Alexandra.
Upon returning from school for my first holidays, I learnt that my
father had been appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and that we were
in consequence to live now for the greater portion of the year in
Dublin.
We were all a little doubtful as to how we should like this new
departure. Dublin was, of course, fairly familiar to us from our stays
there, when we travelled to and from the north of Ireland. Some of the
minor customs of the "sixties" seem so remote now that it may be worth
while recalling them. In common with most Ulster people, we always
stayed at the Bilton Hotel in Dublin, a fine old Georgian house in
Sackville Street. Everything at the Bilton was old, solid, heavy, and
eminently respectable. All the plate was of real Georgian silver, and
all the furniture in the big gloomy bedrooms was of solid, not
veneered, mahogany. Quite invariably my father was received in the
hall, on arrival, by the landlord, with a silver candlestick in his
hand. The landlord then proceeded ceremoniously to "light us upstairs"
to a sitting-room on the first floor, although the staircase was bright
with gas. This was a survival from the eighteenth century, when
staircases and passages in inns were but dimly lit; but it was an
attention that was expected. In the same way, when dinner was ready in
our sitting-room, the landlord always brought in the silver soup-tureen
with his own hands, placed it ceremoniously before my father, and
removed the cover with a great flourish; after which he retired, and
left the rest to the waiter. This was another traditional attention.
Towards the end of dinner it became my father's turn to repay these
civilities. Though he himself very rarely touched wine, he would look
down the wine-list until he found a peculiarly expensive port. This he
would order for what was then termed "the good of the house." When this
choice product of the Bilton bins made its appearance, wreathed in
cobwebs, in a wicker cradle, my father would send the waiter with a
message to the landlord, "My compliments to Mr. Massingberg, and will
he do me the favour of drinking a glass of wine with me." So the
landlord would reappear, and, sitting down opposite my father, they
would solemnly dispose of the port, and let us trust that it never gave
either of them the faintest twinge of gout. These little mutual
attentions were then expected on both sides. Neither my father nor
mother ever used the word "hotel" in speaking of any hostelry in the
United Kingdom. Like all their contemporaries, they always spoke of an
"inn."
In 1860 a new contract had been signed with the Post Office by the
London and North-Western Railway and the City of Dublin Steam-Packet
Co., by which they jointly undertook to convey the mails between London
and Dublin in eleven hours. Up to 1860, the time occupied by the
journey was from fourteen to sixteen hours. Everything in this world
being relative, this was rapidity itself compared to the five days my
uncle, Lord John Russell, the future Prime Minister, spent on the
journey in 1806. He was then a schoolboy at Westminster, his father,
the sixth Duke of Bedford, being Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. My uncle,
who kept a diary from his earliest days, gives an account of this
journey in it. He spent three days going by stage-coach to Holyhead,
sleeping on the way at Coventry and Chester, and thirty-eight hours
crossing the Channel in a sailing-packet. The wind shifting, the packet
had to land her passengers at Balbriggan, twenty-one miles north of
Dublin, from which my uncle took a special post-chaise to Dublin,
presenting his glad parents, on his arrival, with a bill for L31 16s.,
a nice fare for a boy of fourteen to pay for going home for his
holidays!
In order to fulfil the terms of the 1860 contract, the mail-trains had
to cover the 264 miles between London and Holyhead at an average rate
of 42 miles per hour; an unprecedented speed in those days. People then
thought themselves most heroic in entrusting their lives to a train
that travelled with such terrific velocity as the "Wild Irishman." It
was to meet this acceleration that Mr. Ramsbottom, the Locomotive
Superintendent of the London and North-Western Railway, devised a
scheme for laying water-troughs between the rails, by which the engine
could pick up water through a scoop whilst running. I have somewhere
seen this claimed as an American innovation, but the North-Western
engines have been picking up water daily now ever since 1861; nearly
sixty years ago.
The greatest improvement, however, was effected in the cross-Channel
passage. To accomplish the sixty-five miles between Holyhead and
Kingstown in the contract time of four hours, the City of Dublin Co.
built four paddle-vessels, far exceeding any cross-Channel steamer then
afloat in tonnage, speed and accommodation. They were over three
hundred feet in length, of two thousand tons burden, and had a speed of
fifteen knots. Of these the Munster, Connaught, and Ulster were built
by Laird of Birkenhead, while the Leinster was built in London by
Samuda. These boats were most elaborately and comfortably fitted up,
and many people of my age, who were in the habit of travelling
constantly to Ireland, retain a feeling of almost personal affection
for those old paddle-wheel mailboats which carried them so often in
safety across St. George's Channel. It is possible that this feeling
may be stronger in those who, like myself, are unaffected by
sea-sickness. I think that we all took a pride in the finest Channel
steamers then afloat, and, as a child, I was always conscious of a
little added dignity and an extra ray of reflected glory when crossing
in the Leinster or the Connaught, for they had four funnels each. I
think that I am correct in saying that these splendid seaboats never
missed one single passage, whatever the weather, for nearly forty
years, until they were superseded by the present three thousand tons,
twenty-four knot twin-screw boats. The old paddle-wheelers were
rejuvenated in 1883, when they were fitted with forced draught, and
their paddles were submerged deeper, giving them an extra speed of two
knots. Their engines being "simple," they consumed a perfectly ruinous
amount of coal, sixty-four tons for the round trip; considerably more
than the coal consumption of the present twenty-four knotters.
In the "sixties" a new Lord-Lieutenant crossed in a special
mail-steamer, for which he had the privilege of paying.
When my father went over to be sworn-in, we arrived at Holyhead in the
evening, and on going on board the special steamer Munster, we found a
sumptuous supper awaiting us.
There is an incident connected with that supper of which, of course, I
knew nothing at the time, but which was told me more than thirty years
after by Mrs. Campbell, the comely septuagenarian head-stewardess of
the Munster, who had been in the ship for forty-four years. Most
habitual travelers to Ireland will cherish very kindly recollections of
genial old Mrs. Campbell, with her wonderfully fresh complexion and her
inexhaustible fund of stories.
It appears that the supper had been supplied by a firm of Dublin
caterers, who sent four of their own waiters with it, much to the
indignation of the steward's staff, who resented this as a slight on
their professional abilities.
Mrs. Campbell told me the story in some such words as these:
"About ten minutes before your father, the new Lord-Lieutenant, was
expected, the chiefs-steward put his head into the ladies' cabin and
called out to me, 'Mrs. Campbell, ma'am! For the love of God come into
the saloon this minute.' 'What is it, then, Mr. Murphy?' says I. 'Wait
till ye see,' says he. So I go into the saloon where there was the
table set out for supper, so grand that ye wouldn't believe it, and
them four Dublin waiters was all lying dead-drunk on the saloon floor.
"'I put out the spirit decanters on the supper-table,' says Mr. Murphy,
'and see! Them Dublin waiters have every drop of it drunk on me,' he
goes on, showing me the empty decanters. 'They have three bottles of
champagne drunk on me besides. What will we do with them now? The new
Lord Lieutenant may be arriving this minute, and we have no time to
move the drunk waiters for'ard. Will we put them in the little
side-cabins here?' 'Ah then!' says I, 'and have them roaring and
shouting, and knocking the place down maybe in half an hour or so? I'm
surprised at ye, Mr. Murphy. We'll put the drunk waiters under the
saloon table, and you must get another table-cloth. We'll pull it down
on both sides, the way the feet of them will not show." So I call up
two stewards and the boys from the pantry, and we get the drunk waiters
arranged as neat as herrings in a barrel under the saloon table. Mr.
Murphy and I put on the second cloth, pulling it right down to the
floor, and ye wouldn't believe the way we worked, setting out the
dishes, and the flowers and the swatemates on the table. 'Now,' says I,
'for the love of God let none of them sit down at the table, or they'll
feel the waiters with their feet. Lave it to me to get His Excellency
out of this, and then hurry the drunk waiters away!' And I spoke a word
to the boys in the pantry. 'Boys,' says I, 'as ye value your salvation,
keep up a great clatteration here by dropping the spoons and forks
about, the way they'll not hear it if the drunk waiters get snoring,'
and then the thrain arrives, and we run up to meet His Excellency your
father.
"We went down to the saloon for a moment, and every one says that they
never saw the like of that for a supper, the boys in the pantry keeping
up such a clatteration by tumbling the spoons and forks about, that
ye'd think the bottom of the ship would drop out with the noise of it
all. Then I said, 'Supper will not be ready for ten minutes, your
Excellency'--though God forgive me if every bit of it was not on the
table that minute. 'Would you kindly see if the sleeping accommodation
is commodious enough, for we'll alter it if it isn't?' and so I get
them all out of that, and I kept talking of this, and of that, the Lord
only knows what, till Mr. Murphy comes up and says, 'Supper is ready,
your Excellency,' giving me a look out of the tail of his eye as much
as to say, 'Glory be! We have them drunk waiters safely out of that.'"
Of course I knew nothing of the convivial waiters, but I retain vivid
recollections of the splendours of the supper-table, and of the
"swatemates," for I managed to purloin a whole pocketful of preserved
ginger and other good things from it, without being noticed.
We arrived at Kingstown in the early morning, and anchored in the
harbour, but, by a polite fiction, the Munster was supposed to be
absolutely invisible to ordinary eyes, for the new Lord-Lieutenant's
official time of arrival from England was 11 a.m. Accordingly, every
one being arrayed in their very best for the State entry into Dublin,
the Munster got up steam and crept out of the harbour (still, of
course, completely invisible), to cruise about a little, and to
re-enter the harbour (obviously direct from England) amidst the booming
of twenty-one guns from the guardship, a vast display of bunting, and a
tornado of cheering.
Unfortunately, it had come on to blow; there was a very heavy sea
outside, and the Munster had an unrivalled opportunity for showing off
her agility, and of exhibiting her unusual capacity for pitching and
rolling. My youngest brother and I have never been affected by
sea-sickness; the ladies, however, had a very unpleasing half-hour,
though it must be rather a novel and amusing experience to succumb to
this malady when arrayed in the very latest creations of a Paris
dressmaker and milliner; still I fear that neither my mother nor my
sisters can have been looking quite their best when we landed amidst an
incredible din of guns, whistles and cheering.
My father, as was the custom then, made his entry into Dublin on
horseback. Since he had to keep his right hand free to remove his hat
every minute or so, in acknowledgment of his welcome, and as his horse
got alarmed by the noise, the cheering, and the waving of flags, he
managed to give a very pretty exhibition of horsemanship.
By the way, Irish cheering is a thing sui generis. In place of the
deep-throated, reverberating English cheer, it is a long, shrill,
sustained note, usually very high-pitched.
The State entry into Dublin was naturally the first occasion on which I
had ever driven through streets lined with soldiers and gay with
bunting. If I remember right, I accepted most of it as a tribute to my
own small person.
On arriving at the Viceregal Lodge in the Phoenix Park, my brother and
I were much relieved at finding that we were not expected to live
perpetually surrounded by men in full uniform and by ladies in smart
dresses, as we had gathered that we were fated to do during the
morning's ceremonies at Dublin Castle.
The Viceregal Lodge is a large, unpretentious, but most comfortable
house, standing in really beautiful grounds. The 160 acres of its
enclosure have been laid out with such skill as to appear to the eye
double or treble the extent they actually are. The great attraction to
my brother and me lay in a tract of some ten acres of woodland which
had been allowed to run entirely wild. We soon peopled this very
satisfactorily with two tribes of Red Indians, two bands of peculiarly
bloodthirsty robbers, a sufficiency of bears, lions and tigers, and an
appalling man-eating dragon. I fear that in view of the size of the
little wood, these imported inhabitants must have had rather cramped
quarters.
The enacting of the role of a Red Indian "brave" was necessarily a
little fatiguing, for according to Fenimore Cooper, our guide in these
matters, it was essential to keep up an uninterrupted series of
guttural grunts of "Ug! Ug!" the invariable manner in which his
"braves" prefaced their remarks.
There was perhaps little need for the imaginary menagerie, for the
Dublin Zoological Gardens adjoined the "Lodge" grounds, and were
accessible to us at any time with a private key. The Dublin Zoo had
always been very successful in breeding lions, and derived a large
amount of their income from the sale of the cubs. They consequently
kept a number of lions, and the roaring of these lions at night was
very audible at the Viceregal Lodge, only a quarter of a mile away.
When I told the boys at school, with perfect truth, that in Dublin I
was nightly lulled to sleep by the gentle roaring of lions round my
couch, I was called a young liar.
There is a pretty lake inside the Viceregal grounds. My two elder
brothers were certain that they had seen wild duck on this lake in the
early morning, so getting up in the dusk of a December morning, they
crept down to the lake with their guns. With the first gleam of dawn,
they saw that there were plenty of wild fowl on the water, and they
succeeded in shooting three or four of them. When daylight came, they
retrieved them with a boat, but were dismayed at finding that these
birds were neither mallards, nor porchards, nor any known form of
British duck; their colouring, too, seemed strangely brilliant. Then
they remembered the neighbouring Zoo, with its ornamental ponds covered
with rare imported and exotic waterfowl, and they realised what they
had done. It is quite possible that they had killed some unique
specimens, imported at fabulous cost from Central Africa, or from the
heart of the Australian continent, some priceless bird that was the
apple of the eye of the Curator of the Gardens, so we buried the
episode and the birds, in profound secrecy.
For my younger brother and myself, this lake had a different
attraction, for, improbable as it may seem, it was the haunt of a gang
of most abandoned pirates. Behind a wooded island, but quite invisible
to the adult eye, the pirate craft lay, conforming in the most orthodox
fashion to the descriptions in Ballantyne's books: "a schooner with a
long, low black hull, and a suspicious rake to her masts. The copper on
her bottom had been burnished till it looked like gold, and the black
flag, with the skull and cross-bones, drooped lazily from her peak."
The presence of this band of desperadoes entailed the utmost caution
and watchfulness in the neighbourhood of the lake. Unfortunately, we
nearly succeeded in drowning some young friends of ours, whom we
persuaded to accompany us in an attack on the pirates' stronghold. We
embarked on a raft used for cutting weeds, but no sooner had we shoved
off than the raft at once, most inconsiderately, sank to the bottom of
the lake with us. Being Christmas time, the water was not over-warm,
and we had some difficulty in extricating our young friends. Their
parents made the most absurd fuss about their sons having been forced
to take a cold bath in mid-December in their best clothes. Clearly we
could not be held responsible for the raft failing to prove sea-worthy,
though my youngest brother, even then a nice stickler for correct
English, declared, that, given the circumstances, the proper epithet
was "lake-worthy."
What a wonderful dream-world the child can create for himself, and
having fashioned it and peopled it, he can inhabit his creation in
perfect content quite regardless of his material surroundings, unless
some grown-up, with his matter-of-fact bluntness, happens to break the
spell.
I have endeavoured to express this peculiar faculty of the child's in
rather halting blank verse. I apologise for giving it here, as I make
no claim to be able to write verse. My only excuse must be that my
lines attempt to convey what every man and woman must have felt, though
probably the average person would express himself in far better
language than I am able to command.
"Eheu fugaces Postume! Postume!
Labuntur anni.
"The memories of childhood are a web
Of gossamer, most infinitely frail
And tender, shot with gleaming threads of gold
And silver, through the iridescent weft
Of subtlest tints of azure and of rose;
Woven of fragile nothings, yet most dear,
As binding us to that dim, far-off time,
When first our lungs inhaled the fragrance sweet
Of a new world, where all was bright and fair.
As we approach the end of mortal things,
The band of comrades ever smaller grows;
For those who have not shared our trivial round,
Nor helped with us to forge its many links,
Can only listen with dull, wearied mind.
Some few there are on whom the gods bestowed
The priceless gift of sympathy, and they,
Though knowing not themselves, yet understand.
So guard the fragile fabric rolled away
In the sweet-scented chests of memory,
Careful lest one uncomprehending soul
Should, thoughtless, rend the filmy texture frail
Into a thousand fragments, and destroy
The precious relic of the golden dawn
Of life, when all the unknown future lay
Bathed in unending sunlight, and the heights
Of manhood, veiled in distant purple haze,
Offered ten thousand chances of success.
But why the future, when the present seemed
A flower-decked meadow in eternal spring?
When every woodland glade its secrets told
To us, and us alone. The grown-up eye
Saw sun-flecked oaks, and tinkling, fern-fringed stream,
Nor knew that 'neath their shade most doughty Knights
Daily rode forth to deeds of chivalry;
And ruthless ruffians waged relentless war
On those who strayed (without the Talisman
Which turned their fury into impotence)
Into those leafy depths nor dreamed there lurked
Concealed amidst the bosky dells unseen,
Grim dragons spouting instant death; nor feared
The placid lake, along whose reed-fringed shore
Bold Buccaneers swooped down upon their prey.
Which things were hidden from maturer eyes.
To those who breathed the freshness of the morn,
Endless romance; to others, common things.
For to the Child is given to spin a web
Of golden glamour o'er the everyday.
Happy is he who can, in spite of years,
Retain at times the spirit of the Child."
My own personal ambition at that period was a modest one. My mother
always drove out in Dublin in a carriage-and-four, with postilions and
two out-riders. We had always used black carriage-horses, and East, the
well-known job-master, had provided us for Dublin with twenty-two
splendid blacks, all perfect matches. Our family colour being crimson,
the crimson barouche, with the six blacks and our own black and crimson
liveries, made a very smart turn-out indeed. O'Connor, the
wheeler-postilion, a tiny little wizened elderly man, took charge of
the carriage, and directed the outriders at turnings by a code of sharp
whistles. It was my consuming ambition to ride leader-postilion to my
mother's carriage, and above all to wear the big silver coat-of-arms
our postilions had strapped to the left sleeves of their short jackets
on a broad crimson band. I went to O'Connor in the stable-yard, and
consulted him as to my chance of obtaining the coveted berth. O'Connor
was distinctly encouraging. He thought nine rather young for a
postilion, but when I had grown a little, and had gained more
experience, he saw no insuperable objections to my obtaining the post.
The leader-postilion was O'Connor's nephew, a smart-looking,
light-built boy of seventeen, named Byrne. Byrne was less hopeful about
my chance. He assured me that such a rare combination of physical and
intellectual qualities were required for a successful leader-rider,
that it was but seldom that they were found, as in his case, united in
the same person. That my mother had met with no accident whilst driving
was solely due to his own consummate skill, and his wonderful presence
of mind. Little Byrne, however, was quite affable, and allowed me to
try on his livery, including the coveted big silver arm-badge and his
top-boots. In my borrowed plumes I gave the stablemen to understand
that I was as good as engaged already as postilion. Byrne informed me
of some of the disadvantages of the position. "The heart in ye would be
broke at all the claning them leathers requires." I was also told that
after an extra long drive, "ye'd come home that tired that ye'd be
thinking ye were losing your life, and not knowing if ye had a leg left
to ye at all."
I often drove with my mother, and when we had covered more ground than
usual, upon arriving home, I always ran round to the leaders to inquire
anxiously if my friend little Byrne "had a leg left to him, or if he
had lost his life," and was much relieved at finding him sitting on his
horse in perfect health, with his normal complement of limbs encased in
white leathers. I believe that I expected his legs to drop off on the
road from sheer fatigue.
I knew, of course, that the Lord-Lieutenant had to confirm all
death-sentences in Ireland. From much reading of Harrison Ainsworth, I
insisted on calling the documents connected with this,
"death-warrants." I begged and implored my father to let me see a
"death-warrant." He told me that there was nothing to see, but I went
on insisting, until one day he told me that I might see one of these
gruesome documents. To avoid any misplaced sympathy with the condemned
man, I may say that it was a peculiarly brutal murder. A man at Cork
had kicked his wife to death, and had then battered her into a
shapeless mass with the poker. I went into my father's study on the
tip-toe of expectation. I pictured the Private Secretary coming in
slowly, probably draped for the occasion in a long black cloak, and
holding a white handkerchief to his eyes. In his hand he would bear an
immense sheet of paper surrounded by a three-inch black border. It
would be headed DEATH in large letters, with perhaps a
skull-and-crossbones below it, and from it would depend three ominous
black seals attached by black ribbons. The Secretary would naturally
hesitate before presenting so awful a document to my father, who, in
his turn, would exhibit a little natural emotion when receiving it. At
that moment my mother, specially dressed in black for the occasion,
would burst into the room, and falling on her knees, with streaming
eyes and outstretched arms, she would plead passionately for the
condemned man's life. My father, at first obdurate, would gradually be
melted by my mother's entreaties. Turning aside to brush away a furtive
and not unmanly tear, he would suddenly tear the death-warrant to
shreds, and taking up another huge placard headed REPRIEVE, he would
quickly fill it in and sign it. He would then hand it to the Private
Secretary, who would instantly start post-haste for Cork. As the
condemned man was being actually conducted to the scaffold, the Private
Secretary would appear, brandishing the liberating document. All then
would be joy, except for the executioner, who would grind his teeth at
being baulked of his prey at the last minute.
That is, at all events, the way it would have happened in a book. As it
was, the Private Secretary came in just as usual, carrying an ordinary
official paper, precisely similar to dozens of other official papers
lying about the room.
"It is the Cork murder case, sir," he said in his everyday voice. "The
sentence has to be confirmed by you."
"A bad business, Dillon," said my father. "I have seen the Chief
Justice about it twice, and I have consulted the Judge who tried the
case, and the Solicitor and the Attorney-General. I am afraid that
there are no mitigating circumstances whatever. I shall certainly
confirm it," and he wrote across the official paper, "Let the law take
its course," and appended his signature, and that was all!
Could anything be more prosaic? What a waste of an unrivalled dramatic
situation.
When I returned home for the Christmas holidays in 1866, the Fenian
rebellion had already broken out. The authorities had reason to believe
that the Vice-regal Lodge would be attacked, and various precautions
had been taken. Both guards and sentries were doubled; four light
field-guns stood in the garden, and a row of gas-lamps had been
installed there. Stands of arms made their appearance in the passages
upstairs, which were patrolled all night by constables in rubber-soled
boots, but the culminating joy to my brother and me lay in the four
loopholes with which the walls of the bed-room we jointly occupied were
pierced. The room projected beyond the front of the main building, and
was accordingly a strategic point, but to have four real loopholes,
closed with wooden shutters, in the walls of our own bedroom was to the
two small urchins a source of immense pride. The boys at school were
hideously jealous of our loopholes when they heard of them, though they
affected to despise any one who, enjoying such undreamed-of
opportunities, had, on his own confession, failed to take advantage of
them, and had never even fired through the loopholes, nor attempted to
kill any one through them.
The Fenians were supposed to have the secret of a mysterious
combustible known as "Greek Fire" which was unquenchable by water. I
think that "Greek Fire" was nothing more or less than ordinary
petroleum, which was practically unknown in Europe in 1866, though from
personal experience I can say that it was well known in 1868, in which
year my mother, three sisters, two brothers and myself narrowly escaped
being burnt to death, when the Irish mail, in which we were travelling,
collided with a goods train loaded with petroleum at Abergele, North
Wales, an accident which resulted in thirty-four deaths.
Terrible as were the results of the Abergele accident, they might have
been more disastrous still, for both lines were torn up, and the up
Irish mail from Holyhead, which would be travelling at a great pace
down the steep bank from Llandulas, was due at any moment. The front
guard of our train had been killed by the collision, and the rear guard
was seriously hurt, so there was no one to give orders. It occurred at
once to my eldest brother, the late Duke, that as the train was
standing on a sharp incline, the uninjured carriages would, if
uncoupled, roll down the hill of their own accord. He and some other
passengers accordingly managed to undo the couplings, and the uninjured
coaches, detached from the burning ones, glided down the incline into
safety. From the half-stunned guard my brother learned that the nearest
signal-box was at Llandulas, a mile away. He ran there at the top of
his speed, and arrived in time to get the up Irish mail and all other
traffic stopped. On his return my brother had a prolonged fainting fit,
as the strain on his heart had been very great. It took the doctors
over an hour to bring him round, and we all thought that he had died.
I was eleven years old at the time, and the shock of the collision, the
sight of the burning coaches, the screams of the women, the wreckage,
and my brother's narrow escape from death, affected me for some little
while afterwards.
It was the custom then for the Lord-Lieutenant to live for three months
of the winter at the Castle, where a ceaseless round of entertainments
went on. The Castle was in the heart of Dublin, and only boasted a dull
little smoke-blackened garden in the place of the charming grounds of
the Lodge, still there was plenty going on there. A band played daily
in the Castle Yard for an hour, there was the daily guard-mounting, and
the air was thick with bugle calls and rattling kettle-drums.
At "Drawing Rooms" it was still the habit for all ladies to be kissed
by the Lord-Lieutenant on being presented to him, and every lady had to
be re-presented to every fresh Viceroy. This imposed an absolute orgy
of compulsory osculation on the unfortunate Lord-Lieutenant, for if
many of the ladies were fresh, young and pretty, the larger proportion
of them were very distinctly the reverse.
There is a very fine white-and-gold throne-room in Dublin, decorated in
the heavy but effective style of George IV., and it certainly compares
very favourably with the one at Buckingham Palace. St. Patrick's Hall,
too, with its elaborate painted ceiling, is an exceedingly handsome
room, as is the Long Gallery. At my father's first Drawing-Room, when I
officiated as page, the perpetual kissing tickled my fancy so, that,
forgetting that to live up to my new white-satin breeches and lace
ruffles I ought to wear an impassive countenance, I absolutely shook,
spluttered and wriggled with laughter. The ceremony appeared to me
interminable, for ten-year-old legs soon get tired, and ten-year-old
eyelids grow very heavy as midnight approaches. When at length it
ended, and my fellow-page was curled up fast asleep on the steps of the
throne in his official finery, in glancing at my father I was amazed to
find him prematurely aged. The powder from eight hundred cheeks and
necks had turned his moustache and beard white; he had to retire to his
room and spend a quarter of an hour washing and brushing the powder
out, before he could take part in the procession through all the
staterooms which in those days preceded supper. My father was still a
remarkably handsome man even at fifty-six years of age, with his great
height and his full curly beard, and I thought my mother, with all her
jewels on, most beautiful, as I am quite sure she was, though only a
year younger than my father.
The great white-and-gold throne-room brilliant with light, the glitter
of the uniforms, and the sparkle of the jewels were attractive from
their very novelty to a ten-year-old schoolboy, perhaps a little
overwhelmed by his own gorgeous and unfamiliar trappings. We two pages
had been ordered to stand quite motionless, one on either side of the
throne, but as the evening wore on and we began to feel sleepy, it was
difficult to carry our instructions into effect, for there were no
facilities for playing even a game of "oughts and crosses" in order to
keep awake. The position had its drawbacks, as we were so very
conspicuous in our new uniforms. A detail which sticks in my memory is
that the guests at that Drawing-Room drank over three hundred bottles
of my father's sherry, in addition to other wines.
My brother and I were not allowed in the throne-room on ordinary days,
but it offered such wonderful opportunities for processions and
investitures, with the sword of state and the mace lying ready to one's
hand in their red velvet cradles, that we soon discovered a back way
into it. Should any of the staff of Lord French, the present Viceroy,
care to examine the sword of state and the mace, they will find them
both heavily dented. This is due to two small boys having frequently
dropped them when they proved too heavy for their strength, during
strictly private processions fifty-five years ago. I often wonder what
a deputation from the Corporation of Belfast must have thought when
they were ushered into the throne-room, and found it already in the
occupation of two small brats, one of whom, with a star cut out of
silver paper pinned to his packet to counterfeit an order, was lolling
back on the throne in a lordly manner, while the other was feigning to
read a long statement from a piece of paper. The small boys, after the
manner of their kind, quickly vanished through a bolt-hole.
The Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle was built by my grandfather, the Duke
of Bedford, who was Viceroy in 1806, and it bears the stamp of the
unfortunate period of its birth on every detail of its
"carpenter-Gothic" interior. It is, however, very ornate, with a
profusion of gilding, stained glass and elaborate oak carving. My
father and mother sat by themselves on two red velvet arm-chairs in a
sort of pew-throne that projected into the Chapel. The Aide-de-Camp in
waiting, an extremely youthful warrior as a rule, had to stand until
the door of the pew was shut, when a folding wooden flap was lowered
across the aperture, on which he seated himself, with his back resting
against the pew door. At the conclusion of the service the Verger
always opened the pew door with a sudden "click." Should the
Aide-de-Camp be unprepared for this and happen to be leaning against
the door, with any reasonable luck he was almost certain to tumble
backwards into the aisle, "taking a regular toss," as hunting-men would
say, and to our unspeakable delight we would see a pair of slim legs in
overalls and a pair of spurred heels describing a graceful parabola as
they followed their youthful owner into the aisle. This particular form
of religious relaxation appealed to me enormously, and I looked forward
to it every Sunday.
It was an episode that could only occur once with each person, for
forewarned was forearmed; still, as we had twelve Aides-de-Camp, and
they were constantly changing, the pew door played its practical joke
quite often enough to render the Services in the Chapel Royal very
attractive and engrossing, and I noticed that no Aide-de-Camp was ever
warned of his possible peril. I think, too, that the Verger enjoyed his
little joke.
In that same Chapel Royal I listened to the most eloquent and beautiful
sermon I have ever heard in my life, preached by Dean Magee (afterwards
Archbishop of York) on Christmas Day, 1866. His text was: "There were
shepherds abiding in the fields." That marvellous orator must have had
some peculiar gift of sympathy to captivate the attention of a child of
ten so completely that he remembers portions of that sermon to this
very day, fifty-four years afterwards.
To my great delight I discovered a little door near our joint bedroom
which led directly into the gallery of St. Patrick's Hall. Here the big
dinners of from seventy to ninety people were held, and it was my
delight to creep into the gallery in my dressing-gown and slippers and
watch the brilliant scene below. The stately white-and-gold hall with
its fine painted ceiling, the long tables blazing with plate and
lights, the display of flowers, the jewels of the ladies and the
uniforms of the men, made a picture very attractive to a child. After
the ladies had left, the uproar became deafening. In 1866 the old
drinking habits had not yet died out, and though my father very seldom
touched wine himself, he of course saw that his guests had sufficient;
indeed, sufficient seems rather an elastic term, judging by what I saw
and what I was told. It must have been rather like one of the scenes
described by Charles Lever in his books. In 1866 political, religious,
and racial animosities had not yet assumed the intensely bitter
character they have since reached in Ireland, and the traditional Irish
wit, at present apparently dormant, still flashed, sparkled and
scintillated. From my hiding-place in the gallery I could only hear the
roars of laughter the good stories provoked, I could not hear the
stories themselves, possibly to my own advantage.
Judge Keogh had a great reputation as a wit. The then Chief Justice was
a remarkable-looking man on account of his great snow-white whiskers
and his jet-black head of hair. My mother, commenting on this, said to
Judge Keogh, "Surely Chief Justice Monaghan must dye his hair." "To my
certain knowledge he does not," answered Keogh. "How, then, do you
account for the difference in colour between his whiskers and his
hair?" asked my mother. "To the fact that, throughout his life, he has
used his jaw a great deal more than he ever has his brain," retorted
Keogh.
Father Healy, most genial and delightful of men, belongs, of course, to
a much later period. I was at the Castle in Lord Zetland's time, when
Father Healy had just returned from a fortnight's visit to Monte Carlo,
where he had been the guest (of all people in the world!) of Lord
Randolph Churchill. "May I ask how you explained your absence to your
flock, Father Healy?" asked Lady Zetland. "I merely told them that I
had been for a fortnight's retreat to Carlow; I thought it superfluous
prefixing the Monte," answered the priest. Again at a wedding, the late
Lord Morris, the possessor of the hugest brogue ever heard, observed as
the young couple drove off, "I wish that I had an old shoe to throw
after them for luck." "Throw your brogue after them, my dear fellow; it
will do just as well," flashed out Father Healy. It was Father Healy,
too, who, in posting a newly arrived lady as to Dublin notabilities,
said, "You will find that there are only two people who count in
Dublin, the Lady-Lieutenant and Lady Iveagh, her Ex. and her double X,"
for the marks on the barrels of the delicious beverage brewed by the
Guinness family must be familiar to most people.
I myself heard Father Healy, in criticising a political appointment
which lay between a Welsh and a Scotch M.P., say, "Well, if we get the
Welshman he'll pray on his knees all Sunday, and then prey on his
neighbours the other six days of the week; whilst if we get the
Scotchman hell keep the Sabbath and any other little trifles he can lay
his hand on." Healy, who was parish priest of Little Bray, used to
entertain sick priests from the interior of Ireland who were ordered
sea-bathing. One day he saw one of his guests, a young priest, rush
into the sea, glass in hand, and begin drinking the sea water. "You
mustn't do that, my dear fellow," cried Father Healy, aghast. "I didn't
know that there was any harm in it, Father Healy," said the young
priest. "Whist! we'll not say one word about it, and maybe then they'll
never miss the little drop you have taken."
Some of these stories may be old, in which case I can only apologise
for giving them here.
Dublin people have always had the gift of coining extremely felicitous
nicknames. I refrain from quoting those bestowed on two recent
Viceroys, for they are mordant and uncomplimentary, though possibly not
wholly undeserved. My father was at once christened "Old Splendid," an
appellation less scarifying than some of those conferred on his
successors. My father had some old friends living in the west of
Ireland, a Colonel Tenison, and his wife, Lady Louisa Tenison. Colonel
Tenison had one of the most gigantic noses I have ever seen, a vast,
hooked eagle's beak. He was so blind that he had to feel his way about.
Lady Louisa Tenison allowed herself an unusual freedom of speech, and
her comments on persons and things were unconventionally outspoken.
They came to stay with us at the Castle in 1867, and before they had
been there twenty-four hours they were christened "Blind Hookey" and
"Unlimited Loo."
In February 1867 my sister, brother and I contracted measles, and were
sent out to the "Lodge" to avoid spreading infection.
We were already convalescent, when one evening a mysterious stranger
arrived from the Castle, and had an interview with the governess. As a
result of that interview, the kindly old lady began clucking like a
scared hen, fussed quite prodigiously, and told us to collect our
things at once, as we were to start for the Castle in a quarter of an
hour. After a frantically hurried packing, we were bustled into the
carriage, the mysterious stranger taking his seat on the box. To our
surprise we saw some thirty mounted Hussars at the door. As we moved
off, to our unspeakable delight, the Hussars drew their swords and
closed in on the carriage, one riding at either window. And so we drove
through Dublin. We had never had an escort before, and felt immensely
elated and dignified. At the Castle there seemed to be some confusion.
I heard doors banging and people moving about all through the night.
Long afterwards I learnt that the great Fenian rising was fixed for
that night. The authorities had heard that part of the Fenian plan was
to capture the Viceregal Lodge, and to hold the Lord-Lieutenant's
children as hostages, which explains the arrival at the Lodge of Chief
Inspector Dunn, the frantic haste, and the escort of Hussars with drawn
swords.
That night an engagement, or it might more justly be termed a skirmish,
did take place between the Fenians and the troops at Tallagh, some
twenty miles from Dublin. My brothers and most of my father's staff had
been present, which explained the mysterious noises during the night.
As a result of this fight, some three hundred prisoners were taken, and
Lord Strathnairn, then Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, was very hard put
to it to find sufficient men (who, of course, would have to be detached
from his force) to escort the prisoners into Dublin. Lord Strathnairn
suddenly got an inspiration. He had every single button, brace buttons
and all, cut off the prisoners' trousers. Then the men had perforce,
for decency's sake, to hold their trousers together with their hands,
and I defy any one similarly situated to run more than a yard or two.
The prisoners were all paraded in the Castle yard next day, and I
walked out amongst them. As they had been up all night in very heavy
rain, they all looked very forlorn and miserable. The Castle gates were
shut that day, for the first time in the memory of the oldest
inhabitant, and they remained shut for four days. I cannot remember the
date when the prisoners were paraded, but I am absolutely certain as to
one point: it was Shrove Tuesday, 1867, the day on which so many
marriages are celebrated amongst country-folk in Ireland. Dublin was
seething with unrest, so on that very afternoon my father and mother
drove very slowly, quite alone, without an Aide-de-Camp or escort, in a
carriage-and-four with outriders, through all the poorest quarters in
Dublin. They were well received, and there was no hostile demonstration
whatever. The idea of the slow drive through the slums was my mother's.
She wished to show that though the Castle gates were closed, she and my
father were not afraid. I saw her on her return, when she was looking
very pale and drawn, but I was too young to realise what the strain
must have been. My mother's courage was loudly praised, but I think
that my friends O'Connor and little Byrne, the postilions, also deserve
quite a good mark, for they ran the same amount of risk, and they were
no entirely free agents in the matter, as my father and mother were.
Dr. Hatchell, who attended us all, had been physician to countless
Viceroys and their families, and was a very well-known figure in
Dublin. He was a jolly little red-faced man with a terrific brogue.
There was a great epidemic of lawlessness in Dublin at that time. Many
people were waylaid and stripped of their valuables in dark suburban
streets. Dr. Hatchell was returning from a round of professional visits
in the suburbs one evening, when his carriage was stopped by two men,
who seized the horses' heads. One of the men came round to the carriage
door.
"We know you, Dr. Hatchell, so you had better hand over your watch and
money quietly." "You know me," answered the merry little doctor, with
his tremendous brogue, "so no doubt you would like me to prescribe for
you. I'll do it with all the pleasure in life. Saltpetre is a grand
drug, and I often order it for my patients. Sulphur is the finest thing
in the world for the blood, and charcoal is an elegant disinfectant. By
a great piece of luck, I have all these drugs with me in the carriage,
but"--and he suddenly covered the man with his revolver--"they are all
mixed up together, and there is the least taste in life of lead in
front of them, and by God! you'll get it through you if you don't clear
out of that." The men decamped immediately. I have heard Dr. Hatchell
tell that story at least twenty times. Dr. Hatchell, who was invited to
every single entertainment, both at the Lodge and at the Castle, was a
widower. A peculiarly stupid young Aide-de-Camp once asked him why he
had not brought Mrs. Hatchell with him. "Sorr," answered the doctor in
his most impressive tones, "Mrs. Hatchell is an angel in heaven." A
fortnight later the same foolish youth asked again why Dr. Hatchell had
come alone. "Mrs. Hatchell, sorr, is still an angel in heaven,"
answered the indignant doctor.
It was said that no mortal eye had ever seen Dr. Hatchell in the
daytime out of his professional frock-coat and high hat. I know that
when he stayed with us in Scotland some years later, he went out
salmon-fishing in a frock-coat and high hat (with a stethescope clipped
into the crown of it), an unusual garb for an angler.
In the spring of 1868, King Edward and Queen Alexandra (then, of
course, Prince and Princess of Wales) paid us a long visit at the
Castle. My father had heard a rumour that recently the Prince of Wales
had introduced the custom of smoking in the dining-room after dinner.
He was in a difficult position; nothing would induce him to tolerate
such a practice, but how was he to avoid discourtesy to his Royal
guest? My mother rose to the occasion. A little waiting-room near the
dining-room was furnished and fitted up in the most attractive manner,
and before the Prince had been an hour in the Castle, my mother showed
him the charming little room, and told H. R. H. that it had been
specially fitted up for him to enjoy his after-dinner cigar in. That
saved the situation. Young men of to-day will be surprised to learn
that in my time no one dreamed of smoking before they went to a ball,
as to smell of smoke was considered an affront to one's partners. I
myself, though a heavy smoker from an early age, never touched tobacco
in any form before going to a dance, out of respect for my partners.
Incredible as it may sound, in those days all gentlemen had a very high
respect for ladies and young ladies, and observed a certain amount of
deference in their intercourse with them. Never, to the best of my
recollection, did either we or our partners address each other as "old
thing," or "old bean." This, of course, now is hopelessly Victorian,
and as defunct as the dodo. Present-day hostesses tell me that all
young men, and most girls, are kind enough to flick cigarette-ash all
over their drawing-rooms, and considerately throw lighted
cigarette-ends on to fine old Persian carpets, and burn holes in pieces
of valuable old French furniture. Of course it would be too much
trouble to fetch an ash-tray, or to rise to throw lighted
cigarette-ends into the grate. The young generation have never been
brought up to take trouble, nor to consider other people; we might
perhaps put it that they never think of any one in the world but their
own sweet selves. I am inclined to think that there are distinct
advantages in being a confirmed, unrepentant Victorian.
During the stay of the Prince and Princess there was one unending round
of festivities. The Princess was then at the height of her great
beauty, and seeing H. R. H. every day, my youthful adoration of her
increased tenfold. The culminating incident of the visit was to be the
installation of the Prince of Wales as a Knight of St. Patrick in St.
Patrick's Cathedral, with immense pomp and ceremonial. The Cathedral
had undergone a complete transformation for the ceremony, and all its
ordinary fittings had disappeared. The number of pages had now
increased to five, and we were constantly being drilled in the
Cathedral. We had all five of us to walk backwards down some steps,
keeping in line and keeping step. For five small boys to do this
neatly, without awkwardness, requires a great deal of practice. The
procession to the Cathedral was made in full state, the streets being
lined with troops, and the carriages, with their escorts of cavalry,
going at a foot's pace through the principal thoroughfares of Dublin. I
remember it chiefly on account of the bitter northeast wind blowing.
The five pages drove together in an open carriage, and received quite
an ovation from the crowd, but no one had thought of providing them
with overcoats. Silk stockings, satin knee-breeches and lace ruffles
are very inadequate protection against an Arctic blast, and we arrived
at the Cathedral stiff and torpid with cold. From the colour of our
faces, we might have been five little "Blue Noses" from Nova Scotia.
The ceremony was very gorgeous and imposing, and I trust that the pages
were not unduly clumsy. Every one was amazed at the beauty of the
music, sung from the triforium by the combined choirs of St. Patrick's
and Christ Church Cathedrals, and of the Chapel Royal, with that
wonderful musician, Sir Robert Stewart, at the organ. I remember well
Sir Robert Stewart's novel setting of "God save the Queen." The men
sang it first in unison to the music of the massed military bands
outside the Cathedral, the boys singing a "Faux Bourdon" above it. Then
the organ took it up, the full choir joining in with quite original
harmonies.
In honour of the Prince's visit, nearly all the Fenian prisoners who
were still detained in jail were released.
Many years after, in 1885, King Edward and Queen Alexandra paid us a
visit at Barons' Court. During that visit a little episode occurred
which is worth recording. On the Sunday, the Princess of Wales, as she
still was, inspected the Sunday School children before Morning Service.
At luncheon the Rector of the parish told us that one of the Sunday
scholars, a little girl, had been taken ill with congestion of the
lungs a few days earlier. The child's disappointment at having missed
seeing the Princess was terrible. Desperately ill as she was, she kept
on harping on her lost opportunity. After luncheon the Princess drew my
sister-in-law, the present Dowager Duchess of Abercorn, on one side,
and inquired where the sick child lived. Upon being told that it was
about four miles off, the Princess asked whether it would not be
possible to get a pony-cart from the stables and drive there, as she
would like to see the little girl. I myself brought a pony-cart around
to the door, and the Princess and my sister-in-law having got in, we
three started off alone, the Princess driving. When we reached the
cottage where the child lived, H. R. H. went straight up to the little
girl's room, and stayed talking to her for an hour, to the child's
immense joy. Two days later the little girl died, but she had been made
very happy meanwhile.
A little thing perhaps; but there are not many people in Queen
Alexandra's position who would have taken an eight-mile drive in an
open cart on a stormy and rainy April afternoon in order to avoid
disappointing a dying child, of whose very existence she had been
unaware that morning.
It is the kind heart which inspires acts like these which has drawn the
British people so irresistibly to Queen Alexandra.