It was towards the latter end of the year ‘98—the year of the troubles—that the North Cork was ordered, “for their sins” I believe, to march from their snug quarters in Fermoy, and take up a position in the town of Maynooth—a very considerable reverse of fortune to a set of gentlemen extremely addicted to dining out, and living at large upon a very pleasant neighbourhood. Fermoy abounded in gentry; Maynooth at that, time had few, if any, excepting his Grace of Leinster, and he lived very privately, and saw no company. Maynooth was stupid and dull—there were neither belles nor balls; Fermoy (to use the doctor’s well remembered words) had “great feeding,” and “very genteel young ladies, that carried their handkerchiefs in bags, and danced with the officers.”
They had not been many weeks in their new quarters, when they began to pine over their altered fortunes, and it was with a sense of delight, which a few months before would have been incomprehensible to them, they discovered, that one of their officers had a brother, a young priest in the college: he introduced him to some of his confrères, and the natural result followed. A visiting acquaintance began between the regiment and such of the members of the college as had liberty to leave the precincts: who, as time ripened the acquaintance into intimacy, very naturally preferred the cuisine of the North Cork to the meagre fare of “the refectory.” At last seldom a day went by, without one or two of their reverences finding themselves guests at the mess. The North Corkians were of a most hospitable turn, and the fathers were determined the virtue should not rust for want of being exercised; they would just drop in to say a word to “Captain O’Flaherty about leave to shoot in the demesne,” as Carton was styled; or, they had a “frank from the Duke for the Colonel,” or some other equally pressing reason; and they would contrive to be caught in the middle of a very droll story just as the “roast beef” was playing. Very little entreaty then sufficed—a short apology for the “dereglements” of dress, and a few minutes more found them seated at table without further ceremony on either side.
Among the favourite guests from the college, two were peculiarly held in estimation—“the Professor of the Humanities,” Father Luke Mooney; and the Abbé D’Array, “the Lecturer on Moral Philosophy, and Belles Lettres;” and certain it is, pleasanter fellows, or more gifted with the “convivial bump,” there never existed. He of the Humanities was a droll dog—a member of the Curran club, the “monks of the screw,” told an excellent story, and sang the “Cruiskeen Lawn” better than did any before or since him;—the moral philosopher, though of a different genre, was also a most agreeable companion, an Irishman transplanted in his youth to St. Omers, and who had grafted upon his native humour a considerable share of French smartness and repartee—such were the two, who ruled supreme in all the festive arrangements of this jovial regiment, and were at last as regular at table, as the adjutant and the paymaster, and so might they have continued, had not prosperity, that in its blighting influence upon the heart, spares neither priests nor laymen, and is equally severe upon mice (see Æsop’s fable) and moral philosophers, actually deprived them, for the “nonce” of reason, and tempted them to their ruin. You naturally ask, what did they do? Did they venture upon allusions to the retreat upon Ross? Nothing of the kind. Did they, in that vanity which wine inspires, refer by word, act, or inuendo, to the well-known order of their Colonel when reviewing his regiment in “the Phœnix,” to “advance two steps backwards, and dress by the gutter.” Far be it from them: though indeed either of these had been esteemed light in the balance compared with their real crime. “Then, what was their failing—come, tell it, and burn ye?” They actually, “horresco referens,” quizzed the Major coram the whole mess!—Now, Major John Jones had only lately exchanged into the North Cork from the “Darry Ragement,” as he called it. He was a red-hot orangeman, a deputy-grand something, and vice-chairman of the “’Prentice Boys” beside. He broke his leg when a school-boy, by a fall incurred in tying an orange handkerchief around King William’s August neck in College-green, on one 12th of July, and three several times had closed the gates of Derry with his own loyal hands, on the famed anniversary; in a word, he was one, that if his church had enjoined penance as an expiation for sin, would have looked upon a trip to Jerusalem on his bare knees, as a very light punishment for the crime on his conscience, that he sat at table with two buck priests from Maynooth, and carved for them, like the rest of the company!
Poor Major Jones, however, had no such solace, and the canker-worm eat daily deeper and deeper into his pining heart. During the three or four weeks of their intimacy with his regiment, his martyrdom was awful. His figure wasted, and his colour became a deeper tinge of orange, and all around averred that there would soon be a “move up” in the corps, for the major had evidently “got his notice to quit” this world, and its pomps and vanities. He felt “that he was dying,” to use Haines Bayley’s beautiful and apposite words, and meditated an exchange, but that, from circumstances, was out of the question. At last, subdued by grief, and probably his spirit having chafed itself smooth by such constant attrition, he became, to all seeming, calmer; but it was only the calm of a broken and weary heart. Such was Major Jones at the time, when, “suadente diabolo,” it seemed meet to Fathers Mooney and D’Array to make him the butt of their raillery. At first, he could not believe it; the thing was incredible—impossible; but when he looked around the table, when he heard the roars of laughter, long, loud, and vociferous; when he heard his name bandied from one to the other across the table, with some vile jest tacked to it “like a tin kettle to a dog’s tail,” he awoke to the full measure of his misery—the cup was full. Fate had done her worst, and he might have exclaimed with Lear, “spit, fire—spout, rain,” there was nothing in store for him of further misfortune.
A drum-head court-martial—a hint “to sell out”—ay, a sentence of “dismissed the service,” had been mortal calamities, and, like a man, he would have borne them; but that he, Major John Jones, D.G.S. C.P.B., &c. &c., who had drank the “pious, glorious, and immortal,” sitting astride of “the great gun of Athlone,” should come to this! Alas, and alas! He retired that night to his chamber a “sadder if not a wiser man;” he dreamed that the “statue” had given place to the unshapely figure of Leo X., and that “Lundy now stood where Walker stood before.” He humped from his bed in a moment of enthusiasm, he vowed his revenge, and he kept his vow.
That day the major was “acting field officer.” The various patroles, sentries, picquets, and out-posts, were all under his especial control; and it was remarked that he took peculiar pains in selecting the men for night duty, which, in the prevailing quietness and peace of that time, seemed scarcely warrantable.
Evening drew near, and Major Jones, summoned by the “oft-heard beat,” wended his way to the mess. The officers were dropping in, and true as “the needle to the pole,” came Father Mooney and the Abbé. They were welcomed with the usual warmth, and strange to say, by none more than the major himself, whose hilarity knew no bounds.
How the evening passed, I shall not stop to relate: suffice it to say, that a more brilliant feast of wit and jollification, not even the North Cork ever enjoyed. Father Luke’s drollest stories, his very quaintest humour shone forth, and the Abbé sang a new “Chanson a Boire,” that Beranger might have envied.
“What are you about, my dear Father D’Array?” said the Colonel; “you are surely not rising yet; here’s a fresh cooper of port just come in; sit down, I entreat.”
“I say it with grief, my dear colonel, we must away; the half-hour has just chimed, and we must be within ‘the gates’ before twelve. The truth is, the superior has been making himself very troublesome about our ‘carnal amusements’ as he calls our innocent mirth, and we must therefore be upon our guard.”