* * * * *
There are some whose names will never be forgotten in Carbery who will drink no more with us what Martin Ross has called the Wine of Life. For her that cup is set aside, and with her now are three of the best of the lads whose pride and pleasure it used to be to wear the velvet cap of the hunt servant, and to turn hounds in West Carbery. Gallant soldiers, dashing riders, dear boys; they have made the supreme sacrifice for their country, and they will ride no more with us.
The hunt goes on; season follows season; the heather dies on the hills and the furze blossoms again in the spring. Other boys will come out to follow hounds, and learn those lessons that hunting best can teach, but there will never be better than those three: Ralph and Gerald Thornycroft, and Harry Becher.
“Bred to hunting they was,” said the old huntsman, who loved them, and has now, like them, crossed that last fence of all, “every one o’ them. Better gentlemen to cross a country I never see.”
CHAPTER XXV
“THE IRISH R.M.”
As had been the case with “The Real Charlotte,” so were we also in Paris when “Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.”—to give the book its full and cumbrous title—was published by Messrs. Longman in November, 1899.
It was probably better for us both that we should be where, beyond the voices, there was peace, but it meant that most of the fun of publishing a book was lost to us. The thrill, for example, of buying a chance paper, and lighting upon a review in it. One might buy all the papers in Paris without a moment of anxiety.
After a time, however, congested envelopes of “press cuttings,” mostly of a reassuring character, began to arrive. Press-cuttings, received en gros, are liable to induce feelings of indigestion, and with their economy of margin and general suggestion of the waste-paper basket, their tendency is to crush the romance out of reviews; but Martin and I found them good reading. And gradually, letters from unknown readers began to reach us. Pathetic letters, one from “an Irish Exile,” thanking us for “a Whiff of Irish air,” another from Australia, proudly claiming possession of “Five drops of Irish blood,” and offering them as an excuse for “troubling us with thanks.” Serious inquiries, beginning, in one instance, “Dear Sirs or Ladies, or Sir or Lady,”—as to whether we were men or women, or both. A friendly writer, in America, informed us that legend was already “crystalising all over us.” “There is a tradition in our neighbourhood that you are ladies—also that you live at Bally something—that you are Art Students in Paris—that you are Music Students in Germany ... but my writing is not to inquire into your identity—or how you collaborate ... a cumulative debt of gratitude fell due....” The writer then proceeded to congratulate us on “having accomplished the rare feat of being absolutely modern, yet bearing no date,” and ended by saying “I think the stories will be as good in ten years or fifty (which probably interests you less) as they are to-day.” A kind forecast, that still remains to be verified. The same writer, who was herself one of the trade, went on to say that she “knew that the Author is not insulted or aggrieved on hearing that perfect strangers are eagerly awaiting the next book, or re-reading the last with complete enjoyment,” and this chapter may be taken as a confirmation of the truth of what she said. One may often smile at the form in which, sometimes, the approval is conveyed, but I welcome this opportunity of thanking those wonderful people, who have taken the trouble to write to Martin and me, often from the ends of the earth, to tell us that our writing had given them pleasure; not more, I think, than their letters have given us, so we can cry quits over the transaction.
We have been told, and the story is well authenticated, of a young lady who invariably slept with two copies of the book (like my aunt and her “Sommeliers”), one on each side of her, so that on whichever side she faced on waking, she could find instant refreshment. An assurance of almost excessive appreciation came from America, informing us that we “had Shakspere huddled into a corner, screaming for mercy.” We were told of a lady (of the bluest literary blood) who had classified friends from acquaintances by finding out if they had read and appreciated “The Real Charlotte” or no, and who now was unable to conceive how she had ever existed without the assistance of certain quotations from “The R.M.” Perhaps one of the most pleasing of these tales was one of a man who said (to a faithful hearer) “First I read it at full speed, because I couldn’t stop, and then I read it very slowly, chewing every word; and then I read it a third time, dwelling on the bits I like best; and then, and not till then, thank Heaven! I was told it was written by two women!”
An old hunting man, a friend and contemporary of Surtees and Delmé Radcliffe, wrote to us saying that he was “The Evangelist of the Irish R.M. It is the only doctrine that I preach.... It is ten years since I dropped upon it by pure accident, and, like Keats, in his equally immortal sonnet—