The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent Part 26

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ROBERT X SHANAHAN.

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Witnessed by JOHN O'BRIEN.

JEREMIAH CONNOR.'

I have a few tales to tell of Kerry landlords, a race who would have furnished Lever with a worthy theme, men as humorous as they are brave, as diverting as they can stand, loyal to the Crown despite much disparagement, and proud to be Irishmen, though so unappreciated by the paid agitators and their weak tools.

However, as I wish to be on good terms with all my neighbours in this world, and with the ghosts of the departed ones when I meet them in the next, I am not going to give many names or rub up susceptibilities.

Of Kerry landlords, Lord Kenmare naturally suggests himself to be first mentioned. He has been somewhat unjustly attacked more than once about the condition of Killarney as though the town was his private property.

As a matter of fact, he is utterly powerless there, as it was all leased away for five hundred years by his grandfather. About the town the following may be worth telling:--

A very neat plan was drawn up for improving it, which included a gateway between every double block of houses to lead down to the stables and garden, but as it was not thought necessary to put a subletting clause into the lease, the actual consequence was that all these pa.s.sages were converted into filthy lanes. Outside the town Lord Kenmare has built some nice cottages, but within its confines he could effect nothing.

To show you how short-lived is Irish grat.i.tude, ponder over this:--

When Mr. Daniel O'Connell, son of the great Dan, stood for West Kerry as a Unionist, he was warned by the police officer that he could not be answerable for his life if he came into Cahirciveen, for he had only twenty constables to protect him; and his wife--a most charming woman--when driving through the town was surrounded by an insulting mob, members of which actually spat in her face.

That reminds me of a similar experience which befell the wife of Mr.

Cavanagh, the man without arms and legs, who, until denounced by the Land League, was exceptionally popular.

Mrs. Cavanagh was walking along the road in Carlow carrying broth and wine to a poor sick woman, when she found herself the target for a number of stones and had to run for her life amid a shower of missiles.

Despite his exceptional infirmities Mr. Cavanagh could do almost anything. He used to ride most pluckily to hounds, strapped on to his saddle. On one occasion the saddle turned under him, and the horse trotted back to the stable-yard, with his master hanging under him, his hair sweeping the ground, bleeding profusely; he merely cursed the groom with emphatic volubility, had himself more safely readjusted, and then rode out once more.

He always wore pink when hunting. One day a pretty child of ten years old was out with her groom, who followed the scent so ardently, that he forgot all about his charge, who was left behind, and finding herself lost in a wood, began to cry.

Suddenly there swooped out on a very big horse, the armless and legless figure of Cavanagh in his flaming coat, and seeing her predicament, he seized her rein somehow--she never seems quite clear how--saying:--

'Don't be frightened, little girl, for I know who you are, and will take care of you.'

He was as good as his word, but the high-strung, sensitive child, so soon as she was in her mother's embrace, went from one fit of hysterics to another, crying:--

'Oh, mummy, I've seen the devil, I've seen the devil.'

In after years they became great friends, and he often dined with her after she married and settled in London.

Reverting to Lord Kenmare, the following story, which in another version recently won a railway story compet.i.tion in some newspaper, really pertains to his son Lord Castlerosse.

On a line in Kerry there is a sharp curve overhanging the sea. An old woman in a great state of nervous agitation was bundled at the last moment into a first-cla.s.s compartment.

Lord Castlerosse, the only pa.s.senger in the compartment, by way of relieving her obvious agitation, tried to calm her by telling her she could change at the next station.

'Is it me that can be aisy,' she replied, 'when it's my Pat is driving the engine, and him having a dhrop taken, and saying he'll take us a shpin round the Head?'

After all, to my mind, for sheer humour of a quiet sort, nothing beats the observation of the late Sir John G.o.dfrey, who never got up before one in the day, and invariably breakfasted when his family were having lunch. Being asked one day to account for this rather inconvenient habit, he replied:--

'The fact is, I sleep very slow.'

I commend this to every sluggard who wants an excuse to resume his slumbers when awakened too soon.

There was a gentleman who had rather a red nose, and some one remarked that it was an expensive piece of painting, to which some one else significantly added, that it was not a water-colour.

'No,' said Sir John, 'it was done in distemper.'

One night a landlord in Kerry, who shall be nameless, though he has pa.s.sed over to the great majority, went to bed without having much knowledge how he got there.

Two of his sons crept to the neighbouring town, unscrewed the sign outside the inn, and put it at the end of their parent's bed.

When he awoke, he looked at the sign for some time in a bewildered way.

Then he observed aloud:--

'I thought I went to sleep in my own bed, but I'm d----d if I have not woke in the middle of the street.'

A certain roystering gentleman named Jack Ray got drunk and fell asleep in the woods of Kilcoleman. Some of the G.o.dfrey boys, seeing him prostrate and with foam on his lips, ran to summon their father, saying to him:--

'There's a man dead in the wood.'

Sir William hastened to the spot, and having put on his gla.s.ses to get a view of the corpse, observed:--

'Come away, my boys, this man dies once a week.'

Another Kerry landlord, who was also a baronet, dealt with the National Bank, the local manager of which was an arrant sn.o.b, who loved a t.i.tle, and bored everybody with his pretended intimacy with the impecunious baronet. But at last even his patience was exhausted, and he sent the squire a pretty stiff letter about the arrears due.

The other received the letter at breakfast, and showed it to his son just come down from a University, who whistled and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:--

'O tempora! O mores!'

His father instantly retorted:--

'You get me the temporary, and I'll promptly see we have more ease.'

In the bad times, an old woman came into the office at Tralee to pay her rent. Mr. Francis Denny was in a real bad humour with somebody else who had defaulted, and he was raging along in a manner qualified to display his intimate acquaintance with the florid embellishments of the language. The old woman listened with evident admiration for some time.

At last she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:--

'Ah, the nate little man.'

And with that slipped out, without settling her account.

Mr. Francis Denny has the misfortune to be rather lame, and one day another old woman, who liked him, observed:--

'If he had two sound legs under him, there'd be no holding him in Tralee, but he'd be up at the Castle setting the Lord Lieutenant right in his many errors, not to mention going over to London to give the Queen herself a bit of his mind.'

In the bad times, one lady was left in her Kerry residence with her baby boy and a pack of maidservants, her husband having been called over to England.