Читать книгу Seventy Years of Irish Life - William Richard le Fanu - Страница 5

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Early days—A royal visit to Ireland in 1821: Grattan’s witticism—A maid for a dog—A disciple of Isaak Walton as preceptor—Sheridan Le Fanu’s youthful verses and relaxations—A parrot at prayers; and a monkey with the parrot.

I was born on the 24th of February, 1816, at the Royal Hibernian Military School in the Phœnix Park, Dublin; my father being then chaplain to that institution. I was the youngest of three children—the eldest was Catherine Frances; the second, Joseph Sheridan, author of “Uncle Silas” and other novels, and of “Shamus O’Brien” and other Irish ballads.

Here the first ten years of my life were spent, in as happy a home as boy could have. Never can I forget our rambles through that lovely park, the delight we took in the military reviews, sham fights, and races held near the school, not to mention the intense interest and awe inspired by the duels occasionally fought there. The usual time for these hostile meetings was at or soon after daybreak. I only saw one, which from some cause or other took place at a later hour; four shots were fired, after which a reconciliation took place. On more than one such occasion my father acted as peacemaker, and found that the cause of quarrel was something trivial and ridiculous; except by him, there was seldom any interference with these combats. I shall give presently an account of one of the last duels in Ireland, fought about twenty years later.

At an early age my brother gave promise of the powers which he afterwards attained. When between five and six years old a favourite amusement of his was to draw little pictures, and under each he would print some moral which the drawing was meant to illustrate. I well remember one which I specially admired and looked upon as a masterpiece of art, conveying a solemn warning. A balloon was high in air; the two aeronauts had fallen from the boat, and were tumbling headlong to the ground; underneath was printed in fine bold Roman letters, “See the effects of trying to go to heaven.” He composed little songs also, which he very sweetly sang, and some old people can still recall his wonderful acting as a mere boy in our juvenile theatricals.

A ROYAL VISIT.

One of my earliest recollections is of the rejoicings, illuminations, and reviews that took place on the accession of George IV. to the throne in 1820, and the excitement caused by his visit to Ireland in 1821. Royal journeys were not in those days carried out with the ease and celerity with which they are now performed. The king’s departure from London, en route for Dublin, is thus described in the Annual Register:—

“About half-past eleven o’clock his Majesty left his palace in Pall Mall on his way to Ireland. His Majesty went in his plain dark travelling carriage, attended by Lord Graves, as the lord-in-waiting, escorted by a party of the 14th Light Dragoons. The king proceeded as far as Kingston with his own horses, and from thence to Portsmouth with post-horses. His Majesty was to embark and dine on board the royal yacht.”

I saw his state entrance into Dublin from the balcony of my grandfather’s house in Eccles Street, through which the procession passed on its way from Howth, where the king had landed. His Majesty was seated in an open carriage drawn by eight splendid horses, and attended by a number of grooms and footmen in magnificent liveries. He was in military uniform, and constantly took off his hat and smiled and bowed gracefully to the people, who enthusiastically cheered him. It was told that a man in the crowd close to the carriage stretched out his hand to the king, saying, “Shake hands, your Majesty.” The king at once gave him a hearty shake by the hand. The man then waved his hand, and called out, “Begorra, I’ll never wash that hand again!” The king ended a speech which he made to the people from the steps of the Vice-regal Lodge in the following words:—“This is one of the happiest days of my life. I have long wished to visit you; my heart has always been Irish. From the day it first beat I have loved Ireland. This day has shown me that I am beloved by my Irish subjects. Rank, station, honours are nothing; but to feel that I live in the hearts of my Irish subjects is to me the most exalted happiness. I must once more thank you for your kindness, and bid you farewell. Go, and do by me as I shall do by you—drink my health in a bumper. I shall drink all yours in a bumper of Irish whisky.” There was a grand review in the Phœnix Park, at which I well remember some of the infantry regiments still wore white knee-breeches and long black gaiters, and nearly all of them very tall shakos, broad at the top, from which rose long feathers, some red and white, some white. After a stay of about three weeks in Ireland, the king embarked for England at Dunleary, then little more than a fishing village, but now, under its new name “Kingstown,” which George IV. then gave it, one of the most flourishing towns in Ireland. It was eight and twenty years before Ireland was again visited by an English sovereign.

EXCHANGE NO ROBBERY.

The enthusiasm awakened by the king’s visit soon subsided, and ere long he was no more popular than he had been before. Grattan it was who said that “the Irish abused him in every possible shape. First, they abused his person, of which he is very vain; secondly, they abused his mistress, of whom he is very fond; and not content with all that, they praised his own wife.”

It was shortly after the time I have been speaking of that I met with a rather serious accident, owing to my desire to become possessor of a learned dog. I was about five years old, and, with the children’s maid, Maria Walsh, who took care of me, happened to be in our stable-yard when the coachman of Colonel Spottiswoode, the Commandant of the Hibernian School, came into the yard on some message. He had with him a handsome red spaniel, which knew a great number of tricks, all of which the coachman made him perform for me. I was astonished and delighted, and said, “Oh, how I wish I had a dog like that! I’d give anything for a dog like that.” “Then,” said the man, “you can easily have him. Give me Maria, and I’ll give you the dog.” “Oh, I’m so glad!” I said. “Take her, take her, and give me the darling dog.” He put the dog’s chain into my hand, took the girl on his arm, and walked with her out of the yard gate. No sooner had they disappeared than it repented me of what I had done. I burst into floods of tears, and shouted, “Come back, come back! Take your nasty dog, and give me back my own Maria.” Getting no answer, I dropped the dog’s chain, and ran after the pair as hard as I could run; as I came to the gate I tripped and fell. I was stunned, and my forehead was cut open on the sharp spud stone. The coachman and maid carried me into the kitchen. My sister saw them carrying me in, from a window, and ran down to see what was the matter. She found me with my face covered with blood, ran to the drawing-room, and, not wishing to frighten her mother, called her father out. “Oh, papa,” she said, “there’s poor little Willie in the kitchen; and I think his eye is hanging down on his cheek!” I wasn’t, however, so bad as all that; but, in addition to a bad cut, there was a slight fracture of the frontal bone, and there is still a hollow where it was broken. I never tried to part with Maria again. She did not marry the coachman. What became of him I know not; but she never left me till five and fifty years after, when she died in my house at the age of seventy-five. She was one of the girls brought up at the Hibernian Military School, where there were then two hundred soldiers’ daughters, as well as four hundred boys; now the institution is exclusively for boys. Most of these boys become soldiers; their uniform, their drill, their band, as well as the recollection of what their fathers are, or were, makes them long for a military career. Not the least pretty and interesting part of a review in the Phoenix Park, on the Queen’s Birthday, is to see these little fellows march past; and how well they march past, led on by their band playing the “British Grenadiers!” From early associations it is to me a very touching sight.

MY PRECEPTOR.

In the year 1826, my father having been appointed Dean of Emly and Rector of Abington, we left Dublin to live at Abington, in the county of Limerick. Here our education, except in French and English, which our father taught us, was entrusted to a private tutor, an elderly clergyman, Stinson by name, who let us learn just as much, or rather as little, as we pleased. For several hours every day this old gentleman sat with us in the schoolroom, when he was supposed to be engaged in teaching us classic lore, and invigorating our young minds by science; but being an enthusiastic disciple of old Isaak, he in reality spent the whole, or nearly the whole, time in tying flies for trout or salmon and in arranging his fishing gear, which he kept in a drawer before him. Soon after he had come to us, he had wisely taken the precaution of making us learn by heart several passages from Greek and Latin authors; and whenever our father’s step was heard to approach the schoolroom, the flies were nimbly thrown into the drawer, and the old gentleman, in his tremulous and nasal voice, would say, “Now, Joseph, repeat that ode of Horace,” or “William, go on with that dialogue of Lucian.” These passages we never forgot, and though more than sixty years have passed, I can repeat as glibly as then the dialogue beginning, Ὦ πάτερ οἷα πέπονθα[Greek: Ô pater hoia pepontha], and others. As soon as our father’s step was heard to recede, “That will do,” said our preceptor; the drawer was reopened, and he at once returned, with renewed vigour, to his piscatory preparations, and we to our games. Fortunately my father’s library was a large and good one; there my brother spent much of his time in poring over many a quaint and curious volume. As for me, under the guidance and instructions of our worthy tutor, I took too ardently to fishing to care much for anything else. I still profit by those early lessons. I can to-day tie a trout or salmon fly as well as most men.

The appearance of our venerable preceptor was peculiar. His face was red, his hair snow-white; he wore, twice-folded round his neck (as the fashion then was), a very high white cravat; his body was enclosed in a bottle-green frock coat, the skirts of which were unusually long; a pair of black knee-breeches and grey stockings completed his costume. In addition to his other accomplishments he was a great performer on the Irish bagpipes, and often after lessons would cheer us with an Irish air, and sometimes with an Irish song. But, alas! how fleeting are all earthly joys; our happy idle days with our reverend friend were soon to cease. My father found that we were learning absolutely nothing, and discovered, moreover, some serious delinquencies on the part of the old gentleman, who was summarily dismissed in disgrace. For some years we did not know what had become of him, and then heard that he had become a violent Repealer, and sometimes marched, playing party tunes on the pipes, at the head of O’Connell’s processions. The Repealers were of course delighted to have a Protestant clergyman, no matter how disreputable, in their ranks.

In his old age our quondam tutor led, I fear, a far from reputable life in Dublin. I never saw him but once again. It was many years after he had left us; and oh, what a falling off was there! I beheld my friend, whom I had known as the prince of anglers for trout and salmon, sitting, meanly clad, on the bank of the river Liffey, close to Dublin, engaged in the ignoble sport of bobbing for eels.

EARLY VERSES OF MY BROTHER.

When scarcely fifteen years of age my brother Joseph had written many pieces of poetry, which showed a depth of imagination and feeling unusual in a boy of that age. The following are extracts from some of them I have preserved, and which, I think, show remarkable talent for a boy of fifteen years of age:—

“Oh, lovely moon, so bright and so serene, Rolling thy silver disc so silently, Full many an ardent lover’s eye, I ween, Rests on thy waning crescent pensively; And many an aged eye is fixed on thee That seeks to read the hidden things of fate; And many a captive pining to be free, Welcomes thy lustre through his prison gate, And feels while in thy beam not quite so desolate. “There is an hour of sadness all have known, That weighs upon the heart we scarce know why; We feel unfriended, cheerless and alone, We ask no other pleasure but to sigh, And muse on days of happiness gone by: A painful lonely pleasure which imparts A calm regret, a deep serenity, That soothes the rankling of misfortune’s darts, And kindly lends a solace even to broken hearts.”

INTRODUCTION TO O’DONOGHUE—AN UNFINISHED POEM.

“Muse of green Erin! break thine icy slumbers, Wake yet again thy wreathed lyre; Burst forth once more to strike thy tuneful numbers, Kindle again thy long extinguished fire. Long hast thou slept amid thy country’s sorrow, Darkly thou set’st amid thy country’s woes; Dawn yet again to cheer a gloomy morrow, Break with the spell of song thy long repose. Why should I bid thee, Muse of Erin, waken? Why should I bid thee strike thy harp once more? Better to leave thee silent and forsaken, Than wake thee but thy glory to deplore. How could I bid thee tell of Tara’s towers, Where once thy sceptred princes sat in state, Where rose thy music at the festal hours Through the proud halls where listening thousands sat? Fallen thy fair castles, past thy princes’ glory; Thy tuneful bards were banished or were slain; Some rest in glory, in their death-beds gory, And some have lived to feel a foeman’s chain. Yet for the sake of thine unhappy nation, Yet for the sake of Freedom’s spirit dead, Teach thy wild harp to thrill with indignation, Peal a deep requiem on her sons that bled. Yes, like the farewell breath of evening sighing, Sweep thy cold hand its silent strings along, Flash like the lamp beside the hero dying, Then hushed for ever be thy plaintive song.”

From the same.

“I saw my home again at that soft hour When evening weeps for the departed day, And sheds her pensive tears on tree and flower, And sighs her sorrow through the brooklet’s spray; When the sweet thrush pours forth his vesper lay, When slumber closes every graceful bell, And the declining sun’s last lingering ray Seems to the fading hills to bid farewell; And as I looked on this fair scene the big tears fell.”

He let no one see these poems but his mother, his sister, and myself. Whether he feared his father’s criticism I cannot tell, but he never let him see them; still, he certainly had no great dread of my father, for whenever he had incurred his displeasure he would at once disarm him by some witty saying. One thing that much distressed the Dean was his being habitually late for prayers. One morning breakfast was nearly over and he had not appeared; and when he at last came in it was near ten o’clock. My father, holding his watch in his hand, said in his severest voice, “I ask you, Joseph, I ask you seriously, is this right?” “No, sir,” said Joe, glancing at the watch; “I’m sure it must be fast.”

PRACTICAL JOKES.

Practical jokes, I am glad to say, are seldom practised now, but in my early days they were much in vogue. Here is one my brother played on me:—I was in Dublin, and had a long letter from my father, who was at home at Abington, giving me several commissions. In a postscript, he said, “Send me immediately ‘Dodd’s Holy Curate.’ If Curry has not got it you will be sure to get it at some other booksellers’; but be sure to send it, if possible, by return of post.” Curry had it not; in vain I sought it at other booksellers, so I wrote to my father to say that it was not to be had in Dublin, and that Curry did not know the book, but had written to his publishers in London to send it direct to Abington. By return of post I had a letter from my father saying he was utterly at a loss to know what I meant, that he had never asked me to get him “Dodd’s Holy Curate,” and had never known of the existence of such a book. There is, in fact, no such book. What had happened was this: my father had gone out of the library for a few minutes, and had left his letter to me, which he had just finished, open on his writing-table; Joseph had gone into the library and took the opportunity of my father’s absence to add the postscript, exactly imitating his writing, and on his return my father duly folded the letter and sent it to the post without having perceived my brother’s addition to it.

Another, not so harmless—but boys are mischievous—he played on an elderly woman, whom he met near Dublin when he was staying on a visit with some friends. He had never seen the woman before, and never saw her after; but she looked at him as if she recognized him, stopped and stood before him looking earnestly at his face, when the following dialogue ensued:—

Woman. “Oh, then, Masther Richard, is that yourself?”

Joseph. “Of course it is myself. Who else should I be?”

Woman. “Ah, then, Masther Richard, it’s proud I am to see you. I hardly knew you at first, you’re grown so much. Ah, but it’s long since I seen any of the family. And how is the mistress and all the family?”

Joseph. “All quite well, thank you. But why don’t you ever come to see us?”

Woman. “Ah, Masther Richard, don’t you know I daren’t face the house since that affair?”

Joseph. “Don’t you know that is all forgotten and forgiven long ago? My mother and all would be delighted to see you.”

Woman. “If I knew that, I’d have been up to the house long ago.”

Joseph. “I’ll tell you what to do—come up on Sunday to dinner with the servants. You know the hour; and you will be surprised at the welcome you will get.”

Woman. “Well, please God, I will, Masther Richard. Good-bye, Masther Richard, and God bless you.”

What sort of welcome the old lady (she had very probably been dismissed for stealing silver spoons) received on her arrival on the following Sunday has not transpired; but I dare say she was “surprised” at it.

One morning, about this time, our family prayers were interrupted in a comical way. A Captain and Mrs. Druid were staying with us for a few weeks. Having no child, their affections centred in a grey parrot, which they dearly loved, and on whose education most of their time was spent. And truly he was a wonderful bird. Amongst his other accomplishments, he sang “God save the King” in perfect tune; but he never could get beyond “happy and glorious.” The last word seemed so to tickle his fancy, that he couldn’t finish it, but went on singing “happy and glori-ori-ori-ori-ori-ori.” He would also say, “Have you dined? Yes, sir. And on what? Roast beef, sir.” Or, “As-tu déjeuné, mon petit Coco? Oui, monsieur. Et de quoi? Macaroni, monsieur.”

For fear of accidents, he was not allowed into the breakfast-room till after prayers. One morning, however, by some mischance, he was there; but behaved with becoming decorum until prayers were nearly over. My father had got to the middle of the Lord’s Prayer, when, in a loud voice, Poll called out, “As many as are of that opinion will say ‘aye;’ as many as are of the contrary opinion will say ‘no.’ The ‘ayes’ have it.” I need hardly say, prayers were finished under difficulties.

PARROT AND MONKEY.

This reminds me of a story which I heard, or read, not long since, of a gentleman who had a monkey and a parrot, to both of which he was much attached; but such was the enmity of the monkey to the parrot, that he never ventured to leave them by themselves. One morning he had just come down to breakfast, when he suddenly remembered that he had left them together in his bedroom. Upstairs he ran, three steps at a time, and into his room, where, to his horror, he saw the monkey, seated by the fire with a large heap of feathers before him. “Oh, you villain,” he called out, “you have killed the parrot!” At the same moment he heard a slight rustling behind him, and, on turning round, saw the poor bird coming from under the bed with scarcely a feather except a few on his head, which he held on one side and said, “We’ve been having a devil of a time of it!”