It is not peculiar to Irish incomes
to fail to develop in response to increasing demands
upon them. It was, however, a distinctive feature
of the incomes of those who were Irish landlords during
the latter years of the Victorian era, to shrink in
steady response to the difficulties of English government
in Ireland. Only Irish people can understand
the complicated processes of erosion to which Dick
Talbot-Lowry’s resources were subjected, or can
realise the tests of fortitude and endurance to a
man of spirit, that were involved by the visitations
of “Commissioners,” with their fore-ordained
mission of lowering Dick’s rents, rents that,
in Dick’s opinion, were already philanthropically
low. Major Talbot-Lowry, like many of his tribe,
though a pessimist in politics, was an optimist in
most other matters, and found it impossible to conceive
a state of affairs when he would be unable to do approximately whatever
he had a mind for. At the age of fifty-eight,
fortitude and endurance are something of a difficulty
for a gentleman unused to the exercise of either of
these fine qualities, and after keeping the Broadwater
Vale Hounds, for seventeen years, as hounds should
be kept, regardless of the caprices of the subscription
list, Major-Talbot-Lowry felt that he had deserved
better of his country than that he should now have
to institute minor economies, such as putting his
men into brown breeches, foregoing the yearly renewal
of their scarlet coats, and other like humiliations.
Farther than details such as these, his sense of right
and wrong did not permit him to go.
“There are some things that
they can’t expect a gentleman to do,” he
would say to his cousin, Miss Coppinger, “and
as long as I keep the hounds
“Then, my dear Dick, if you
can’t afford them, why keep them?” Frederica
would rejoin, with unsparing common-sense.
Unmarried ladies of mature age, have,
as a rule, learned not only fortitude and endurance,
but have also mastered the fact that ways are governed
by means. Those processes of erosion, however,
to which reference has been made, were, comparatively
speaking, slow in operation, and there remained always
Lady Isabel’s twenty thousand golden sovereigns,
as safe and secluded in the hands of trustees (who
had a constitutional disbelief in Irishmen), as if
they were twenty thousand nuns under the rule of a
royal abbess.
Therefore did Major Talbot-Lowry,
M.F.H., and the Broadwater Vale Hounds, make a creditable
show, brown breeches and last season’s pink
coats notwithstanding, at the meet at Coppinger’s
Court, on December 26th of the year 1897. The
weather was grey and silver, with a light southeast
wind and a rising glass. Sunshine was filtering
down, as it were through muslin curtains that might
at any moment be withdrawn; some crocuses and snowdrops
had appeared in the grass round the wide gravel sweep
in front of the house; there was a perplexed primrose
or two, deceived by the sun as to the date; the scent
of the violets in the bed under the drawing-room windows,
came in delicate whiffs round the corner of the house.
It would have been impossible to believe that but
twenty-four hours ago, Christmas hymns had been shouted,
and Christmas presents presented, had not a group
of “Wran-boys” offered irrefutable testimony
that this was indeed the Feast of Stephen. These,
a ragged and tawdry little cluster of mummers, shabby
survivors of mediaeval mysteries, were gathered round
their ensign holly-bush in front of the hall-door
steps. From the holly-bush swung the corpse of
the wren, and from the throats of the Wran-Boys came
the song that recounts the wicked wren’s pursuit
and slaughter:
“The Wran, the Wran, the King of
all birds,
On Stephenses’ Day was cot in the
furze,
And though he is little, his family is
great,
Rise up, good gentlemen, and give us a
thrate Huzzay!”
Wherever in South Munster two or three
boys were gathered together, that song was being sung,
and Major Talbot-Lowry and his staff had already met
so many of such companies on their way to the Meet,
that their horses’ indignation at finding a
further collection of nightmares at Coppinger’s
Court was excusable.
On the high flight of hall-door steps,
stood Larry and Miss Coppinger, the former pale with
excitement, the latter doggedly resigned to the convention
that compelled her to offer intoxicating drinks to
people who, as she said, had but just swallowed their
breakfasts. Larry had learned many things since
that day of abysmal ignorance when he had spoken of
Amazon as a “nice dog.” Among his
many enthusiasms he now included a passion for the
chase, and all that appertains to its elaborate cult,
that complied with Christian’s, and even Cottingham’s,
sense of what was becoming, and, having dedicated a
shelf in the library to books on hunting, he had read
them all, with the same ardour that, four years earlier,
he had brought to bear on The Spirit of the Nation
and Irish history.
Major Talbot-Lowry looked down, from
the top of his tall, white-faced chestnut, on his
young cousin, and accepted the glass of port that
Larry reverently offered to him, with a pleased appreciation
of the reverence. Cousin Dick was not invariably
pleased with his young cousin. He had gathered,
hazily, from his wife, such of the tenets of the Companions
of Finn as she, instructed by Miss Weyman, had been
able to impart, and had not approved of them, nor of
Larry’s part in introducing them to his young;
also it was annoying (especially when he remembered
the brown breeches, etc.) to think of a young
cub of a boy having more money than he knew what to
do with; and, finally, and all the time, there was
that almost unconscious, inbred distrust of Larry’s
religion.
Nevertheless, it has been said that
“wise men live in the present, for its bounties
suffice them,” and Dick, if not very wise, was
very good-natured, and was wise enough to realise
that the fine weather, and the good horse under him,
and even Larry’s homage, were bounties sufficient
unto the day.
“Got a fox for me, Larry?
That’s right. Good boy. Where d’ye
think we’ll find him?”
“He’s using the Quarry
Wood earth, Cousin Dick,” said Larry, breathlessly,
with the anxiety of the owner of the coverts alight
in his eyes. “I’m certain he’s
there. I went round with Sullivan myself last
night, and we stopped the whole place. I bet he’ll
not get in anywhere!”
“Good! I’ll draw
the Quarry Wood first,” said Cousin Dick, with
royal benignity. “You get away outside
at the western end, and keep a look-out for him.”
A heavy man, on an enormous grey horse,
had approached the Master, having edged his way through
the hounds with ostentatious care. He was of
a type sufficiently common among southern Irishmen,
with thick, strong-growing, black hair, a large, black
moustache, and heavy brows, over-shadowing eyes of
precisely the same shade of blunted blue as his shaven
chin.
“He’s a credit to his
breeding, Major!” said the heavy man, indicating
Larry with a sandwich from which he had taken a bite
of the size of one of his horse’s hoofs; “I
wish we had a few more lads coming on in the country
like him!”
“What good are they going to
do?” responded the Master, reverting to the
pessimistic mood that was daily becoming more frequent
with him; “what chance is there for a gentleman
in this damned country? You might as well have
a mill-stone round your neck as an Irish property
these times! What do you suppose will be left
to us after the next ‘Revision of Rents,’
as they call it?”
“Well, deuce a much indeed,”
returned Doctor Mangan, equably, “but it mightn’t
be so bad as that altogether! I have my little
girl out for the first time to-day, Major. I
wonder might I ask your man, that’s looking
after your young ladies, to have an eye to her, too?”
Doctor Mangan withdrew with the required
permission, and with his daughter at his heels, proceeded
through the assembling riders and carriages, distributing
greetings as he went.
Doctor Francis Aloysius Mangan was
one of the leading doctors in the district of which
the towns of Cluhir and Riverstown each felt itself
to fill the most important place. Ireland grows
doctors and clergymen with almost equal success and
profusion. There is in the national character
a considerable share of the constituents that are valuable
in both professions. Power of sympathy, good-nature,
intuition, adroitness, discernment of character, and
a gift for taking every man in his humour. Qualities
that are perhaps beside the specialised requirements,
but are equally indispensable.
In what degree these attributes were
bestowed upon Doctor Mangan may gradually be ascertained
by the patient reader, but in the case of Father David
Hogan, P.P., of Riverstown, at this juncture in lively
converse with the Misses Talbot-Lowry, the reader may
be spared the exercise of that tiresome virtue, and
may feel confident that Father Hogan failed in none
of the qualities that have been enumerated. Father
David was, indeed, the most popular man in the country
with all classes and creeds; he was universally known
as the Chaplain of the B.V.H., and was accounted one
of the chiefest glories of the hunt. Major Talbot-Lowry
was accustomed to boast, in places where such as he
congregate, that He, in His country, had the best priest
in Ireland! A real good man. Kept the farmers
civil and friendly. Managed a district for the
Fowl Fund. And a topper to ride always
at the top of the hunt!
“Trust a priest to have a good
horse!” is the rejoinder prescribed in such
cases, and Major Dick’s fellows seldom failed
to comply with the ritual.
Father David, stout, jolly, and, like
his namesake, of a ruddy countenance, mounted upon
a black mare as stout and sporting-looking as himself,
was, as Doctor Mangan drew near to the Misses Talbot-Lowry,
beaming upon these two lambs from another fold, and
having congratulated Miss Judith on the appearance
of the grey mare that she was riding (reft from Lady
Isabel and the victoria), was endearing himself
to Miss Christian by tales of the brace of hound puppies
that he was walking for the hunt.
The advantage of being the youngest
member of a large family is one that takes a considerable
time to mature. Christian was thirteen years
old before what was left of one of the Hunt horses,
after seven strenuous seasons of official work, was
placed at her sole disposal. This residue, battered
though it was, and a roarer of remarkable power and
volume, was incapable of falling, and with anything
under eight stone on its piebald back (piebald from
incessant and sedulously concealed saddle-galls) could
always be trusted to keep within reasonable distance
of hounds when they ran. It was fortunate for
Christian that Judith, now sixteen, and far from a
feather-weight, had renounced her share in “Harry,”
and had established a right in the grey mare.
Judith was a buccaneer. Charles, the coachman,
(in connection with the commandeering of the grey
mare, which he resented) had said of her to his respected
friend, Mr. Evans: “Ah, ah! That’s
the young lady that’ll get her whack out of the
world!”
And Mr. Evans’ reaping-hook nose had sniffed
assent.
Yet, though Judith was averted, the
Christmas holidays always held the menace of brothers
to be reckoned with as rival claimants for Harry.
“The boys, darling!” “Unselfishness,
darling!” “After the holidays, my child!”
Lady Isabel was of the school that
inculcated self-denial for its daughters, but never
for its sons; (whether from a belief that such was
inherent in the male sex, or from a fear that the effort
would be misplaced, it is difficult to say).
Christian was ever quick to respond to the call for
martyrdom, but that the Twins should both maltreat
and despise the venerable Harry, added a poignancy
to renunciation that placed it almost beyond attainment.
On this day of festival, happily, renunciation was
not exacted; other attractions had absorbed the Twins,
and Christian’s rights were unchallenged.
Therefore, it was that the youngest
Miss Talbot-Lowry, perched on old Harry’s broad
back, and looking of about the same size in relation
to it as the “Wran” to the holly-bush,
was now blissfully discussing hound-puppies with her
trusted friend, Father David, and was asking nothing
more that life could offer.
Dr. Mangan, meantime, waited, with
a permissive smile, for the moment to make his “little
girl” known to the young ladies from Mount Music,
and to their cousin, young Larry Coppinger. He
was in no hurry, and he had often had occasion to
agree with Milton (though he had been quite unaware
of so doing) in thinking that they also serve who only
stand and wait.