CHAPTER XIV. O'Connell's Reminiscences of his own Courtship-Hands the goaler-Ballads-Travelling in the Olden Time. ON one of our Repeal journeys-namely, to Waterford-he adverted, as he frequently did, to the memory of the late Mrs. O'Connell. "I never," said he, "proposed marriage to any woman but one-my Mary. I said to her, Are you engaged, Miss O'Connell?'-She answered, ‘I am not.'-Then,' said I, will you engage yourself to me?'-'I will,' was her reply.—And I said I would devote my life to make her happy. She deserved that I should-she gave me thirty-four years of the purest happiness that man ever enjoyed. My uncle was desirous I should obtain a much larger fortune, and I thought he would disinherit me. But I did not care for that. I was richly rewarded by subsequent happiness." "And your profession made you independent ?" "Yes-the first year I was at the bar I made 587., the second year about 150l., the third year 2007., the fourth year about 300 guineas.* I then advanced rapidly; and the last year of my practice I got 90007., although I lost one term.” "Did your wife reside in Tralee ?' "She did, with her grandmother; and it was my delight to quiz the old lady, by pretending to complain of her grand-daughter's want of temper. Madam,' said I, Mary would do very well, only she is so cross.' Cross, sir? My Mary cross? Sir, you must have provoked her very much! Sir, you must yourself be quite in fault! Sir, my little girl was always the gentlest, sweetest creature born.' "And so she was," he added, after a pause. "She had the sweetest, the most heavenly temper, and the sweetest breath." He remained some moments silent, and then resumed — "When my wife was a little girl, she was obliged to pass, on her way to school, every day, under the arch of the gaol; and Hands, the gaoler of Tralee, a most gruff, uncouth-looking fellow, always made her stop and curtsey to him. She despatched the * I think I have stated these sums correctly, but am not quite certain. curtsey with all imaginable expedition, and ran away to school, to get out of his sight as fast as possible." It often happened during our journeys, that after a silence that lasted for some time, O'Connell would suddenly break out with a snatch of some old ballad in Irish or English. On this day he sang out, "I leaned my back against an oak, F I expressed some surprise that these ballad scraps should rest upon his memory. "Oh," replied he, "I liked ballads of all things, when I was a boy. In 1787, I was brought to the Tralee assizes→→→ assizes were then a great mart for all sorts of amusements, and I was greatly taken with the balladsingers. It was then I heard two ballad-singers, a man and a woman, chanting out the ballad from which you heard me sing that verse. He sang the first two lines-she sang the third line-both together sang the fourth, and so on through the whole ballad." Among the odds and ends of verse which stored his memory, were some stanzas composed by a luckless Kerry poet, who, when starving in Paris, was recommended to pay his court to the minister Sartine, in an adulatory address. The first couplet ran thus, "Yellow Phoebus, inspire my poitrine, To sing the praises of Monsieur de Sartine." O'Connell often contrasted the rapid mode of modern travelling, with the slower movements of past days. "I remember," said he, "when I left Darrynane for London in 1795, my first day's journey was to Carhen-my second to Killorglin-my third to Tralee-my fourth to Limerick—two days thence to Dublin. I sailed from Dublin in the evening-my passage to Holyhead was performed in twenty-four hours; from Holyhead to Chester, took six-and-thirty hours-from Chester to London, three days. My uncle kept a diary of a tour he made in England between the years '70 and '80, and one of his memorabilia was 'This day we have travelled thirty-six miles, and passed through part of five counties.' In 1780, the two members for the county of Kerry sent to Dublin for a noddy, and travelled together in it from Kerry to Dublin. The journey occupied seventeen days; and each night the two members quartered themselves at the house of some friend; and on the seventeenth day they reached Dublin, just in time for the commencement of the session. The steam navigation is of infinite utility in abridging the sufferings of sea-sickness. In a sailing vessel, you often got almost to land, and yet were tantalised by chopping winds or tides which prevented your landing. I remember in 1817 dodging for eight hours about Caernarvon harbour before we could land. When on shore, I proceeded to Capelcarrig, where I was taken very ill; and I was not consoled by reflecting that should my illness threaten life, there was no Catholic priest within forty miles of me." |