That you may not go guessing wrongly as to how or why Tom Somerville could or should come to grow any friendship or regard for me, I may as well give you my own guess on the subject. He had an only son, who was a captain or major in the English army in the Crimean war in the year 1854. During the days of the fighting, news came that the son was killed in one of the battles, and there was much public sympathy with the father. Then news came that the son was living. After that came the news that the war was over, and that the son was coming home. There was preparation in the town for giving him a “welcome home.”
John Powers Hayes, the local poet asked me to help him out with some lines of welcome he was writing in acrostic form on “Major Thomas Somerville.” I helped him, and then I came in for getting the credit of doing the whole thing. So much so, that after that Tom Somerville was disposed to be fairly friendly with me whenever I came his way. I remember that the last five lines of that acrostic, based on the five last letters of the word “Somerville,” ran this way:
Valor’s representative! Skibbereen will gladly greet him,
Imbued with feelings of respect she joyfully will meet him;
Loudly to home she’ll welcome him—old friends, old scenes, say rather,
Like to one risen from the dead, around him she will gather,
Enjoying to see that he again has met his honored father.
And now I have to leave Skibbereen—leave it for good—leave it forever, I may say. Coming on June, 1863, I came to America, having an intention to go back in a few months’ time to live in Skibbereen. I never went back to make my home there. Farther on you will learn, how and why this came to pass.
But I often visit there when far away, just as many another Irish exile visits through dreamland, the old hearth of the old home, and sees again the old landmarks of the days of his youth in the old land.