My Brother's Hunting-lodge. Stuck to a wall.

Chapter VI

My Brother’s Hunting-Lodge

Waking the piper - Curious scene at my brother’s hunting-lodge - Joe Kelly’s and Peter Alley’s heads fastened to the wall - Operations practised in extricating them.

I met with a ludicrous instance of the dissipation of even later days, a few months after my marriage. Lady B--- and myself took a tour through some of the southern parts of Ireland, and among other places visited Castle Durrow, near which place my brother, Henry French Barrington, had built a hunting cottage, wherein he happened to have given a house-warming the previous day.

The company, as might be expected at such a place and on such an occasion, was not the most select-in fact, they were *“hard-going” *sportsmen.

Amongst the rest, Mr. Joseph Kelly, of unfortunate fate, brother to Mr. Michael Kelly, who by the bye does not say a word about him in his *Reminiscences, *had been invited, to add to the merriment by his pleasantry and voice, and had come down from Dublin for the purpose.

It may not be amiss to say something here of that remarkable person. I knew him from his early youth. His father was a dancing master in Mary Street, Dublin; and I found in the newspapers of that period a number of puffs in French and English, of Mr. O’Kelly’s abilities in that way - one of which, a certificate from a French *artiste, *of Paris, is curious enough. [Mr. Kelly is just returned from Paris. Ladies and gentlemen who are pleased to send their commands to No. 30 Mary Street, will be most respectfully attended to.

Je certifie que M. Guillaume O’Kelly est venu a Paris pour prendre de moi lecons, et qu’il est sorti de mes mains en état de pouvoir enseigner la dance avec succes. - GARDEL, Maitre a Danser de la Reine, et Maitre des Ballets du Roy. ‘A Paris, le 20eme Aout, 1781.] What could put it into his son’s head, that he had been *Master of the Ceremonies at Dublin Castle *is rather perplexing! He became a wine merchant latterly, dropped the O, which had been placed at the beginning of his name, and was a well conducted and respectable man. [But as he was a *Roman Catholic, *and as no Roman Catholic could *then *hold any office in the vice-regal establishment of Dublin Castle, Mr. M. Kelly must have been misinformed on that point as to his father, whom I have often seen. Mr. Gofton, a dancing master of Anne Street, Linen Hall, and uncle to Doctor Barrett, the late extraordinary vice-provost of Trinity College, was a friend of Mr. O’Kelly’s, and taught me to the day of his death, which was sudden,]

Joe was a slender young man, remarkably handsome; but with regard to character, always what in that part of the country they emphatically styled “the *devil!” *I recollect his dancing a hornpipe in a sailor’s costume most admirably upon the stage. He also sang the songs of *Young Meadows, *in “Love in a Village,” extremely well, as likewise those of *Macheath *and other parts; but he could never give the *acting *any effect. He was, strictly speaking, a bravura singer - there was no pathos - nothing *touchant *in his cadences; but in drinking-songs, &c. he was unrivalled. As his brother has not thought proper to speak about him, it might be considered out of place for me to go into his history, all of which I know, and many passages of which might probably be both entertaining and instructive.

Some parts of it, however, are already on record, and others I hope will never be recorded. The Duke of Wellington knew Joe Kelly extremely well; and if he had *merited *advancement, I dare say he would have received it. The last conversation I had with him was on the Boulevard Italien in Paris. I was walking with my son, then belonging to the 5th Dragoon Guards. Kelly came up and spoke to us. I shook him by the hand, and he talked away - spoke to my son - no answer; he tried him again - no reply. Kelly seemed surprised, and said, “Don’t you know me, Barrington? why don’t you speak to me?” “‘Tis because I *do *know you that I do *not *speak to you,” replied my son. Kelly blushed, but turned it off with a laugh. I could not then guess the reason for this cut direct, and my son refused to tell me. I have *since, *however, become acquainted with it, and think the sarcasm *well *merited. It was, indeed, the bitterer, from its being the only one I ever heard my son utter. Joe Kelly killed his man in a duel, for which he was tried and *narrowly *escaped. According to his own account indeed, he killed plenty more men at the Battle of Waterloo and in other actions. He was himself shot at Paris by a commissary with whom he had quarrelled, and the humorists remarked thereupon that Joe had died a natural death.

Of this convivial assemblage at my brother’s, he was, I suppose, the very life and soul. The dining-room had not been finished when the day of the dinner-party arrived, and the lower parts of the walls having only that morning received their last coat of plaster, were of course totally wet.

We had intended to surprise my brother, but had not calculated on the scene I was to witness. On driving to the cottage door I found it open, whilst a dozen dogs of different descriptions shewed ready to receive us not in the most polite manner. My servant’s whip, however, soon sent them about their business, and I ventured into the parlour to see what cheer. It was about ten in the morning: the room was strewed with empty bottles, some broken, some interspersed with glasses, plates, dishes, knives, spoons, &c. all in glorious confusion. Here and there were heaps of bones, relics of the former day’s entertainment, which the dogs, seizing their opportunity, had cleanly picked.

Three or four of the Bacchanalians lay fast asleep upon chairs, one or two others on the floor, among whom a piper lay on his back, apparently dead, with a table-cloth spread over him, and surrounded by four or five candles burnt to the sockets; his chanter and bags were laid scientifically across his body, His mouth was quite open, and his nose made ample amends for the silence of his drone. Joe Kelly and a Mr. Peter Alley were fast asleep in their chairs, close to the wall.

Had I never viewed such a scene before, it would have almost terrified me; but it was nothing more than the ordinary custom which we called *waking the piper, *when he had got too drunk to make any more music.

I went out and sent away my carriage and its inmate to Castle Durrow, whence we had come, and afterwards proceeded to seek my brother. No servant was to be seen, man or woman. I went to the stables, wherein I found three or four more of the goodly company, who had just been able to reach their horses, but were seized by Morpheus before they could mount them, and so lay in the mangers awaiting a more favourable opportunity. Returning hence to the cottage, I found my brother, also asleep on the only bed which it then afforded: he had no occasion to put on his clothes, since he had never taken them off.

I next waked Dan Tyron, a wood-ranger of Lord Ashbrook, who had acted as maitre d’hotel in making the arrangements, and providing a horse load of game to fill up the banquet. I then inspected the parlour, and insisted on breakfast. Dan Tyron set to work: an old woman was called in from an adjoining cabin, the windows were opened, the room cleared, the floor swept, the relics removed, and the fire lighted in the kitchen. The piper was taken away senseless, but my brother would not suffer either Joe or Alley to be disturbed till breakfast was ready. No time was lost; and after a very brief interval we had before us abundance of fine eggs, and milk fresh from the cow, with brandy, sugar, and nutmeg in plenty, a large loaf, fresh butter, a cold round of beef, which had not been produced on the previous day, red herrings, and a bowl dish of potatoes roasted on the turf ashes, in addition to which, ale, whisky, and port made up the refreshments. All being duly in order, we at length awakened Joe Kelly and Peter Alley, his neighbour: they had slept soundly, though with no other pillow than the wall, and my brother announced breakfist with a view holloa. [The shout of hunters when the game is in view.]

The twain immediately started and roared in unison with their host most tremendously! it was, however, in a very different tone from the *view holloa, *and perpetuated much longer.

Come, boys,” says French, giving Joe a pull - “come!”

“Oh, murder!” says Joe, ” I can’t !” - “Murder! murder !” echoed Peter French pulled them again, upon which they roared the more, still retaining their places. I have in my lifetime laughed till I nearly became spasmodic, but never were my risible muscles put to greater tension than upon this occasion. The wall, as I said before, had only that day received a coat of mortar, and of course was quite soft and yielding when Joe and Peter thought proper to make it their pillow; it was nevertheless setting fast from the heat and lights of an 18 hours’ carousal, and in the morning, when my brother awakened his guests, the mortar had completely set, and their hair being the thing most calculated to amalgamate therewith, the entire of Joe’s stock, together with his *queue *and half his head, was thoroughly and irrecoverably bedded in the greedy and now marble cement; so that if determined to move, he must have taken the wall along with him, for separate it would not. One side of Peter’s head was in the same state of imprisonment. Nobody was able to assist them, and there they both stuck fast.

A consultation was now held on this pitiful case, which I maliciously endeavoured to prolong as much as I could, and which was, in fact, every now and then interrupted by a roar from Peter or Joe, as they made fresh efforts to rise. At length, it was proposed by Dan Tyron to send for the stone-cutter, and get him to cut them out of the wall with a chisel. I was literally unable to speak two sentences for laughing. The old woman meanwhile tried to soften the obdurate wall with melted butter and new milk, but in vain. I related the school story how Hannibal had worked through the Alps with hot vinegar and hot irons; this experiment likewise was made, but Hannibal’s solvent had no better success than the old crone’s. Peter, being of a more passionate nature, grew ultimately quite outrageous; he roared, gnashed his teeth, and swore vengeance against the mason, but as he was only held by one side, a thought at last struck him: he asked for two knives, which being brought, he whetted one against the other, and introducing the blades close to his skull, sawed away at cross corners till he was liberated, with the loss only of half his hair and a piece of his scalp, which he had sliced off in zeal and haste for his liberty.

I never saw a fellow so extravagantly happy! Fur was scraped from the crown of a hat to stop the bleeding, his head was duly tied up with the old woman’s praskeen, [A** **coarse *dirty apron, worn by working women in a kitchen in the country parts of Ireland.] *and he was soon in a state of bodily convalescence. Our solicitude was now required solely for Joe, whose head was too deeply buried to be exhumated with so much facility. At this moment Bob Casey, of Ballynakill, a very celebrated wigmaker, just dropped in to see what he could pick up honestly in the way of his profession, or steal in the way of anything else; and he immediately undertook to get Mr. Kelly out of the mortar by a very expert but tedious process, namely, clipping with his scissors and then rooting out with an oyster knife. He thus finally succeeded in less than an hour in setting Joe once more at liberty, at the price of his queue, which was totally lost, and of the exposure of his raw and bleeding occiput.

The operation was, indeed, of a mongrel description somewhat between a complete tonsure and an imperfect scalping; to both of which denominations it certainly presented claims. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good! Bob Casey got the making of a skull-piece for Joe, and my brother French had the pleasure of paying for it, as gentlemen in those days honoured any order given by a guest to the family shopkeeper or artizan.

I ate a hearty breakfast, returned to Durrow, and having joined my companion, we pursued our journey to Waterford, amusing ourselves the greater part of the way with the circumstances just related, which, however, I do not record merely as an abstract anecdote, but, as I observed in starting, to shew the manners and habits of Irish country society and sportsmen even so recently as 30 years ago; and to illustrate the changes of those habits and manners, and the advances towards civilisation, which, coupled with the extraordinary *want *of *corresponding prosperity, *present phenomena

I am desirous of impressing upon my reader’s mind, throughout the whole of this miscellaneous collection of original anecdotes and observations.

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