There are certain persons who are
born heralds and genealogists; there are many more
to whom these useful gifts have been denied. With
apologies to both classes, to the one for sins of omission,
to the other in the reverse sense, I find that an
excerpt from the Talbot-Lowry pedigree must be inflicted
upon them.
With all brevity, let it be stated
that Dick Talbot-Lowry possessed a father, General
John Richard, and General John Richard had an only
sister, Caroline. Caroline, fair and handsome,
like all her family, was “married off,”
as was the custom of her period, at the age of seventeen,
to elderly Anthony Coppinger, chiefly for the reason
that he was the owner of Coppinger’s Court,
with a very comfortable rent-roll, and a large demesne,
that marched, as to its eastern boundaries, with that
of Mount Music, and was, as it happened, divided from
it by no more than the Ownashee, that mountain river
of which mention has been made. It was, therefore,
exceedingly advisable that the existing friendly relations
should be cemented, as far as was practicable, and
the fair and handsome Caroline was an obvious and
suitable adhesive. To Anthony and Caroline, two
children were born; Frederica, of whom more hereafter,
and Thomas. By those who lay claim to genealogic
skill, it will now be apparent that these were the
first cousins of Dick Talbot-Lowry. Thomas went
into the Indian Army, and in India met and married
a very charming young lady, Theresa Quinton, a member
of an ancient Catholic family in the North of England,
and an ardent daughter of her Church. In India,
a son was born to them, and Colonel Tom, who adored
his wife, remarking that these things were out of
his line, made no objection to her bringing up the
son, St. Lawrence Anthony, in her own religion, and
hoped that the matter would end there. Mrs. Coppinger,
however, remembering St. Paul’s injunctions
to believing wives and unbelieving husbands, neither
stopped nor stayed her prayers and exhortations, until,
just before the birth of a second child, she had succeeded
in inducing Tom Coppinger (just “to
please her, and for the sake of a quiet life,”
as he wrote, apologetically, to his relations and
friends, far away in Ireland) to join her Communion.
She then died, and her baby followed her. Colonel
Tom, a very sad and lonely man, came to England and
visited St. Lawrence Anthony at the school selected
for him by his mother; then he returned to his regiment
in India, and was killed, within a year of his wife’s
death, in a Frontier expedition. He left Larry
in the joint guardianship of his sister, Frederica,
and his first cousin, Dick Talbot-Lowry, with the
request that the former would live with the boy at
Coppinger’s Court, and that the latter would
look after the property until the boy came of age
and could do so himself; he also mentioned that he
wished his son’s education to continue on the
lines laid down by his “beloved wife, Theresa.”
It must, with regret, be stated, that
the relatives and friends in far-away Ireland, instead
of admiring “poor Tom’s” fidelity
to his wife’s wishes, murmured together that
it was very unfortunate that “poor Theresa”
had not died when Larry was born, as, in that case,
this “disastrous change of religion” would
not have taken place. Taking into consideration
the fact that Larry was to live among his Irish cousins,
it is possible that from the point of view of expediency,
the relations and friends were in some degree justified.
Ireland, it is almost superfluous
to observe, has long since decided to call herself
The Island of Saints, an assertion akin to the national
challenge of trailing the coat-tails, and believers
in hereditary might, perhaps, be justified in assuming
a strictly celibate sainthood. Be that as it
may, Irish people have ever been prone to extremes,
and, in spite of the proverb, there are some extremes
that never touch, and chief among them are those that
concern religion. Religion, or rather, difference
of religion, is a factor in every-day Irish life of
infinitely more potency than it is, perhaps, in any
other Christian country. The profundity of disagreement
is such that in most books treating of Ireland, that
are not deliberately sectarian, a system of water-tight
compartments in such matters is carefully established.
It is, no doubt, possible to write of human beings
who live in Ireland, without mentioning their religious
views, but to do so means a drastic censoring of an
integral feature of nearly all mundane affairs.
This it is to live in the Island of Saints.
In this humble account of the late
Plesiosauridae and their contemporaries, it is improbable
that any saint of any sect will be introduced; one
assurance, at least, may be offered without reservation.
Those differing Paths, that alike have led many wayfarers
to the rest that is promised to the saints, will be
treated with an equal reverence and respect.
But no rash undertakings can be given as touching
the wayfarers, or even their leaders, who may chance
to wander through these pages. Neither is any
personal responsibility accepted for the views that
any of them may express. One does not blame the
gramophone if the song is flat, or if the reciter drops
his h’s.
After this exhaustive exordium it
is tranquillising to return to the comparative simplicities
of the existence of the young Talbot-Lowrys.
Those summer holidays of the year 1894 were made ever
memorable for them by the re-inhabiting of Coppinger’s
Court. Mount Music was a lonely place; it lay
on the river, about midway between the towns of Cluhir
and Riverstown, either of which meant a five or six
mile drive, and to meet such friends and acquaintances
as the neighbourhood afforded, was, in winter, a matter
confined to the hunting-field, and in summer was restricted,
practically, to the incidence of lawn-tennis parties.
Possibly the children of Mount Music, thus thrown upon
their own resources, developed a habit of amusing
themselves that was as advantageous to their caretakers
as to their characters. It certainly enhanced
very considerably their interest in the advent of Master
St. Lawrence Coppinger. He became the subject
of frequent and often heated discussions, the opinion
most generally held, and stated with a fine simplicity,
being that he would prove to be “a rotter.”
“India,” John said, “had
the effect of making people effemeral.”
“Effeminate, ass!” corrected Richard,
shortly.
“Anyhow,” said a Twin, charitably, “we
can knock that out of him!”
“Anyhow,” said Judith,
next to Richard in age and authority, “if he
is a rotter, he can go into the Brats’
band. You want someone decent,” she added,
addressing the Twin, whose remark she felt to have
savoured of presumption.
This family had, for purposes of combat
and of general entertainment, divided itself into
two factions, that fought endlessly among the woods
and shrubberies. A method had been recently introduced
by Richard of utilising the harmless, necessary pocket-handkerchief
as a sling for the projection of gravel, and its instant
popularity had resulted in the denuding of the avenues
of ammunition, and in arousing a great and just fury
in the bosom of the laundress. “God knows
it isn’t me has all the hankershiffs holed this
way!” she pointed out. “Thim children
is the divil outlawed. Thim’d gallop the
woods all the night, like the deer!”
The assortment of the family had been
decided rather on the basis of dignity, than on that
of a desire to equalise the sides, and thus it befel
that Richard, Judith, and John, with the style and
title of The Elder Statesmen, were accustomed to drive
before them the junior faction of The Brats, consisting
of the Twins, Christian, and the dogs, Rinka and Tashpy,
with a monotony of triumph that might have been expected
to pall, had not variety been imparted by the invention
of the punishments that were inflicted upon prisoners.
There had been a long and hot July day of notable
warfare. The Twins, if small, were swift and
wily; even Christian had justified her adoption by
a stealthy and successful raid upon the opposition
gravel heap. A long and savage series of engagements
had ensued, that alternated between flights, and what
Christian, blending recollections of nursery doctoring
with methods of Indian warfare, designated “stomach-attacks.”
It was while engaged in one of the latter forms of
assault that Christian was captured, and, being abandoned
by her comrades, was haled by the captors before Richard,
the Eldest Statesmen. A packed Court-martial
of enemies speedily found the prisoner guilty, and
the delicious determining of the punishment absorbed
the attention of the Court. John, with a poet’s
fancy, suggested that the criminal should be compelled
to lick a worm. Judith, more practical, advocated
her being sent to the house to steal some jam.
“I forgot to,” she said.
The Court was held in the Council
Chamber, a space between the birches and hazels on
the bank of the Ownashee; a fair and green room, ceiled
with tremulous leaves, encircled and made secret by
high bracken, out of which rose the tarnished-silver
stems of the birch trees and the multitudinous hazel-boughs,
and furnished with boulders of limestone, planted
deep in a green fleece of mingled moss and grass.
On one side only was it open to the world, yet on
that same side it was most effectively divided from
it, by the swift brown stream, speeding down to the
big river, singing its shallow summer song as it sped.
Richard, Eldest Statesman, gazed in
dark reflection upon the prisoner, meditating her
sentence; the prisoner, young enough to tremble in
the suspense, old enough to enjoy the nerve-tension
and the moment of drama, gazed back at him. Her
hair lay in damp rings, and hung in rats’-tails
about her forehead. Her small face, with the silver-clear
skin, stippled here and there with tiny freckles, was
faintly flushed, and moist with the effort of her
last great but unavailing run for freedom; her wide
eyes were like brown pools scooped from the brown
flow of the Ownashee.
“I adjudge,” said Richard,
in an awful voice, “that the prisoner shall
amass three buckets of the best gravel. The same
to be taken from the shallow by the seventh stepping-stone.”
The prisoner’s little brown
arm, with a hand thin and brown as a monkey’s,
went up; the recognised protest.
“Not the seventh, most noble
Samurai,” she said, anxiously; “Won’t
it do from the strand?”
“I have spoken,” replied
the Eldest Statesman, inflexibly.
“Then I won’t!”
exclaimed Christian; “I I couldn’t!
The river giddys me so awfully when I stand still
on the stones
“Prisoner!” returned Richard,
“once the law is uttered, it can’t be
unuttered! Off you go!”
“Well then, and I will
go!” said Christian, with a wriggle so fierce
and sudden that it loosed the grip of her guards.
It is even possible that the ensuing lightning dart
for freedom might have succeeded, but for the unfortunate
fidelity of her allies, Rinka and Tashpy. The
one sprang at her brief skirt and caught it, the other
got between her legs. She fell, and was delivered
again into the hands of the enemy.
Richard was not a bully, but Mrs.
Sarah Battle was not more scrupulous than he in observing
the rigour of the game. Christian was manacled
with the belt of her own overall, and was hauled along
the golden, but despised, gravel of the river strand,
to the spot whence the stepping-stones started.
“I’ll do this much for
you,” said the Eldest Statesman, relaxing a
little, “I’ll go first and carry the bucket.”
He dragged Christian on to the first
of the big, flat, old stepping-stones, Judith assisting
from the rear, and, with increasing difficulty, two
more stones were achieved. Then they paused for
breath, and a sudden whirlwind of passion came upon
the captive. She began to struggle and dance
upon the flat stone, madly endeavouring to free her
hands, while she shrieked to the dastard Twins to come
to her rescue.
“Cowards! Cowards! I hate you all
“Better let her go,” whispered
Judith, who knew better than her Chief what Christian’s
storms meant.
Richard hesitated, and, as in a mediaeval
romance, at this moment a champion materialised.
Not the Twins, lying like leopards
along the higher boughs of a neighbouring alder, deeply
enjoying the spectacle, but a boy, smaller than Richard,
who came crashing through the bushes on the Coppinger’s
Court side of the Ownashee. Arrived, at the ford,
he stayed neither his pace nor his stride, and before
the Eldest Statesman, much hampered by his prisoner
and the bucket, could put up any sort of defence,
the unknown rescuer had sprung across the stepping-stones,
and, catching him by the shoulders, had, by sheer force
of speed and surprise, hurled him into the river.
Thus did Larry Coppinger, informally
but effectively, introduce himself to his second-cousins,
the Talbot-Lowrys.