The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon

by J. M. Gordon

Let me tell you now what happened to Mick Molloy. He was certainly a good horse and a splendid jumper, but he had one bad fault and that was that, every now and again, apparently for no reason whatever, except the same cussedness that held him when he wouldn’t go up the hill, he would hit a bank or a wall full hard and turn head over heels into the next field. As the weather, as a rule, was moist, and there was plenty of mud about when Mick Molloy performed his athletic feat and I picked myself up from the soft ground, I generally succeeded in attaching to my person a fairly considerable amount of Irish soil. At this particular time one of the great demands by Irishmen was for what they then called “fixity of tenure.” Can you wonder that, after my repeated attempts to annex as much of Irish soil as Mick Molloy could help me to, the members of the hunt christened me “Fixity of Tenure”?

I had a visit from one of the best riders in Ireland at that time who was quartered at the Curragh, whose riding at Punchestown Races was always good to watch and who had come down for a few days’ stay with us. There was a meet of the hounds; he wanted a ride. I offered him Mick Molloy, who was in good form just then, and he accepted the offer. I warned him of his one peculiarity. The morning of the hunt we rode out together. It was in the direction of Ballynegarde. There was often a trap to be met in the way of a sunken ditch over-grown with gorse, and unless one knew the lay of it a horse was apt to rush through instead of jumping and find himself and the rider at the bottom of the sunken ditch. I had forgotten to warn the rider of Mick Molloy of this fact. We had a fine seven-mile run in the morning and killed one fox. My friend was delighted with Mick, for he had carried him to the kill without a fall. He was full of praises of old Mick.

The hounds had a spell and, once more, they were thrown into covert. In a short time “Gone away” was heard and the hounds streamed out, following a good scent, across a beautiful piece of country. I got into difficulties very early. Old Larry and I had a difference of opinion about a stone wall. He wouldn’t have it at any price. I had got out of the line and, unless I could get over that particular wall, I was going to be out of the run. So I made up my mind that over the wall Old Larry must go, with the result that I got over the wall all right but Old Larry didn’t. Not only that, but, after giving what I thought at the time was a very impertinent sniff, he put his head and his tail up in the air and trotted off across the field, leaving me in full possession of the wall. That run was over for me. Another belated huntsman caught Old Larry and, as it was late in the afternoon and the hounds were well out of sight, we turned our horses’ heads towards home. The hour for dinner came. It was dark. It was raining, but neither my friend nor Mick Molloy had turned up. We dined heartily and well, and it was not till about ten o’clock, when the port wine was going round merrily, that my brother officer came in. Yes, he was wet and weary. He carried a saddle and a bridle in his arms, but—alas! also there was no Mick Molloy. In the second run he had come across one of these sunken ditches. Mick Molloy rushed it, fell into it, and the weight of his rider had broken his back. Such was the end of good old Mick.

The last meet of the Limerick Hounds which was held that season gave the opportunity to some bright members of the club to play off a practical joke on the members of the Hunt. If the weather was suitable after the close of the season, and the Master so wished, a few extra meets were arranged for by him. No regular notice was given for such meets; the secretary of the Hunt generally informed the members by post-card that a meet would be held at such a place next day. This particular year April Fools’ Day was on a Tuesday. The members duly received a post-card on the Monday that an extra meet of the hounds would take place at a place called Tervoe, about five miles from Limerick, on the Wednesday. Later on in the afternoon on the same day members received telegrams to say that the meet would take place on the Tuesday instead of Wednesday. On Tuesday morning members turned up and wound their ways towards Tervoe. At the barracks we had to rearrange our plans as to who could get away for this, perhaps the last meet of the year. It was finally settled, and those of us who could be spared rode off.

On the way to Tervoe we overtook a couple of other members, and after riding a little distance they said, “You fellows had better go back. This is a sell. Don’t you know it’s April Fools’ Day? Go back.” Well, we believed them and turned back, for they told us they were only going out to see the fun at Tervoe.

We were going back when we met some other members going out, so we told them, “Don’t you go. This is all a sell. Don’t you know it’s April Fools’ Day?” They looked at us in surprise and said, “Well! How can you fellows have been made fools of like this? Those two chaps are just making April fools of you. Come along, let’s hurry on or we’ll be late.” It was in no pleasant mood that we trotted again towards Tervoe. We were anxious to interview our two kind friends. Then we arrived at the Meet to find that it was a sell all right, and that the whole of the members of the Hunt had been sold. We only had one satisfaction left, and that was that we had been sold twice that morning instead of once.

I must leave dear old Ireland, pass over my stay in Cork; the glorious days in Queenstown Harbour; how we dropped two fourteen-ton guns, the first of their kind, which we were to mount at Carlisle Fort, into the bottom of the sea and how we picked them out again; the late nights and the early mornings at the Cork and Queenstown clubs; the beautiful girls for whom Old Ireland is so much noted; the meetings of the South United Hunt Club at Middleton, where the Murphys, Coppingers and other splendid riders lived. And I must also pass over the six weeks of what in those days appeared to me as the term of solitary confinement right away at Greencastle Fort at the entrance to Lough Swilly. I went up there in the winter. Greencastle village was a small summer resort for the people of Londonderry. There was an hotel, which was open in the summer, and was managed by a man and his sisters. In the winter it was shut up. A few small cottages were also closed up. The population consisted of the policeman and three or four fishermen.

There was nothing to do for the men at the fort, except a little gun-drill. The nearest village was Moville, some four miles off. It was too rough as a rule to go fishing with any degree of comfort, so it was that I learnt how to play marbles. The old policeman, a couple of the fishermen and the hotel-keeper, when he was sober—which was not often—were quite experts, and taught me the game. They called it Three-Hole. The idea was this: you had to make nine holes, and the one who was last in doing so had to stand drinks, and, in addition, to put his hand down on the ground, with the knuckles facing the others, each one of whom had three shots at him with a good hard marble. This may be of little interest, indeed, as far as the game is concerned, but it shows one how different were the lives of us young officers then from what they are nowadays.

After my stay at Greencastle I proceeded to take charge of our detachment at Carlisle Fort, Queenstown Harbour. Have you ever been there? If not, go when you get the opportunity. Certainly Carlisle Fort itself—it lies on the left-hand side of the exit from the harbour—is difficult to get to. Either you had to cross by sailing-boat from Queenstown—there were no motor launches—or else drive right round the long arm of the harbour, at the end of which is Rostellon Castle. In the summer either trip was, as a rule, quite enjoyable. If one wished to go to Queenstown or Cork, an hour or so with a fair wind would land you at Queenstown. If, on the other hand, time was no particular object, the drive to Middleton, the headquarters of the hunt, was a most pleasant one. You passed Aghada Hall, then Rostellon, farther on. You could rest at the Sadleir Jacksons’ hospitable home. But in the winter it was not so pleasant. The hunting country was all on the inland side of the harbour. One’s mounts had to be sent round by Rostellon the day before the meet. And then, if those of us quartered at Carlisle wished to get to the meet in time, we had to make a very early start in our garrison boat, so as to reach Queenstown for an early breakfast at the club, and then a long drive to the meet. Sitting in an open boat at 4 A.M. on a dark winter’s morning, with perhaps a head wind and four miles of a choppy sea to battle against, required a considerable amount of endurance and keenness, but we did it all right. It used to strike me as an odd circumstance in those days that the Tommies who manned the boat were so pleasant over the job. They were not going to hunt. They were not out to enjoy themselves. We were. Yet there were always volunteers, who apparently found pleasure in helping their young officers, though at very considerable inconvenience to themselves. But then the right Tommy is, and always has been, a good chap.

It was out with the Cork South United Pack of fox-hounds that I first met with a serious accident. I was riding a ripping mare, which I had named Kate Dwyer, and which, up to the day of this accident, had not given me a fall. The hounds were running up a long gully. The fox did not seem to have made up his mind as to which side of the gully he would break. Some of us thought it would be to the right, and we were following the crest of the gully on that side. We came to a stone wall on the slope of the hill. It was a thin wall—daylight through it. One had only to give the stones a push to make a very easy gap. I walked the mare up to it quietly and was leaning forward to push the stones down with my whip, when, I presume, the mare thought I wanted her to move on. So she tried to make a standing jump of it. It was a failure. She struck it and we fell together, my right leg being crushed by her weight falling on it on some of the displaced stones. The leg was not broken, but the flesh and tissues were all torn below the knee, and the bone pretty well lacerated. I was taken to Middleton, the then home of the Murphys and the Coppingers and many other good sportsmen, and, after having my injuries patched up, went to hospital. The mare, I am happy to say, had hardly even a scratch on her. She was the best bit of horseflesh I ever threw my legs across. I sold her afterwards to a friend from Northumberland, who, having married an Irish girl, used to come every year to put in a couple of months’ hard riding in Limerick. He bought her from me at the end of the season and took her home to Northumberland. She did well in the summer, but, on the opening day of their season, she fell down dead in the middle of their first run. Poor old Kate.