Children alone could extract from him the tales of various feats of his youth, feats in which, one supposes, the wild blood that was in him found its outlet and satisfaction; of the savage bull on to whose back he had dropped from the branch of a tree, and whom he had then ridden in glory round and round the field; of the bulldog who jumped at the nose of a young half-trained Arab mare when my father was riding her, and caught it, and held on. And so did my father, while the mare flung herself into knots (and how either dog or man “held their howlt” it is hard to imagine). The bulldog was finally detached with a pitchfork by one Jerry Hegarty, who must himself have shown no mean skill and courage in adventuring into the whirl of that nightmare conflict, but my father sat it out. It was a daughter of that mare, named Lalla Rukh, a lovely grey (whom I can remember as a creature by me revered and adored, above, perhaps, any earthly thing), who was being ridden by my father through a town when they met a brass band. Lalla Rukh first attempted flight, but such was her confidence in her rider that, in the end, she let him ride her up to the big drum, and, in further token of devotion, she then, heroically, put her nose on it. One imagines that the big drummer was enough of a gentleman to refrain from his duties during those tense moments, but the rest of the band blazed on. My father was a boy of seventeen when he got his commission and was presently quartered at Birr, where he acted as Whip to the regimental pack of hounds. There is an authentic story of a hound, that my grandfather sent to Birr, by rail and coach, escaping from the barracks, and making his way back to the kennels at Drishane. Birr is in King’s County, and the journey, even across country, must be over a hundred miles. (These things being thus, it is hard to understand why any dog is ever lost.)
My father was in the Kaffir wars of 1843 and 1849, and fought right through the Crimean campaign, being one of the very few infantry officers who won all the clasps with the Crimean medal. One of his brother officers in the 68th Durham Light Infantry has told (I quote from an account published by the officer in question) “of an incident that shows the coolness and ready daring that characterised him. On the morning of the battle of Inkermann, 5th Nov., 1854, the 68th saw a body of troops moving close by. Owing to the fog it was impossible to distinguish if these were Russian or English. It was of the utmost importance, and the Colonel of the 68th exclaimed, ‘What would I give to be able to decide!’
“Without a pause Henry Somerville said, ‘I’ll soon let you know!’ And, throwing open his grey military great-coat, he showed the scarlet uniform underneath.
“In a second a storm of rifle bullets answered the momentous question, thus speedily proving that enemies, and not friends, formed the advancing troops.”
There is another story of my father’s turning back, during a retirement up hill under heavy fire, at the battle of the Alma, to save a wounded private, whom he carried on his back out of danger. But not from him did we hear of these things. One of the few soldiering stories that I can recollect hearing from him was in connection with the fighting proclivities of his servant, Con Driscoll, a son of a tenant who had followed him into the regiment. Con had been in a row of no small severity; his defence, as is not unusual, took the form of reflections upon the character of his adversary, and an exposition of his own self-restraint.
“If it wasn’t that I knew me ordhers,” he said, “and the di-shiplin’ of the Sarvice, I wouldn’t lave him till I danced on his shesht!”
CHAPTER VI
HER MOTHER
I have spoken of that first cousinhood of seventy, the grandchildren of the Chief Justice, of whom my mother and Martin’s were not the least notable members. I want to say something more of these two, and if such tales as Martin and I have remembered may seem sometimes to impinge upon the Fifth Commandment, I would, in apology, recall the old story of the masquerade at which Love cloaked himself in laughter, and was only discovered when he laughed till he cried, and they saw that the laughter was assumed, but the tears were real.
I have come upon a letter of my cousin Nannie’s, undated, unfortunately, but its internal evidence, indicating for her an age not far exceeding seven years, would place it in or about the year 1830.
“To Mrs. Charles Fox: