Mrs. Cavanagh was walking along the road in Carlow carrying broth and wine to a poor sick woman, when she found herself the target for a number of stones and had to run for her life amid a shower of missiles.
Despite his exceptional infirmities Mr. Cavanagh could do almost anything. He used to ride most pluckily to hounds, strapped on to his saddle. On one occasion the saddle turned under him, and the horse trotted back to the stable-yard, with his master hanging under him, his hair sweeping the ground, bleeding profusely; he merely cursed the groom with emphatic volubility, had himself more safely readjusted, and then rode out once more.
He always wore pink when hunting. One day a pretty child of ten years old was out with her groom, who followed the scent so ardently, that he forgot all about his charge, who was left behind, and finding herself lost in a wood, began to cry.
Suddenly there swooped out on a very big horse, the armless and legless figure of Cavanagh in his flaming coat, and seeing her predicament, he seized her rein somehow—she never seems quite clear how—saying:—
'Don't be frightened, little girl, for I know who you are, and will take care of you.'
He was as good as his word, but the high-strung, sensitive child, so soon as she was in her mother's embrace, went from one fit of hysterics to another, crying:—
'Oh, mummy, I've seen the devil, I've seen the devil.'
In after years they became great friends, and he often dined with her after she married and settled in London.
Reverting to Lord Kenmare, the following story, which in another version recently won a railway story competition in some newspaper, really pertains to his son Lord Castlerosse.
On a line in Kerry there is a sharp curve overhanging the sea. An old woman in a great state of nervous agitation was bundled at the last moment into a first-class compartment.