[55]. This idea was a standing joke with him for some time, till old Kit Julian, the retired exciseman, (heretofore mentioned,) made a hit at my uncle, which put his comparison to an end. “By my troth, then, Counsellor,” said Kit, “if you are like a fir, it is not a ‘spruce fir’ any how.” This sarcasm cut my uncle in the raw; and it was said that he had an additional shaving day, and clean cravat every week afterward.
My uncle’s dress exactly matched his style of person: he always wore a snuff-coloured coat and breeches, with a scarlet waistcoat that had been once bound with lace (the strings whereof remained, like ruins in a landscape); blue worsted stockings, and immense silver shoe and knee-buckles. His hat was very large, with a blunt cock in front. It had also once been fully laced; but, no button had been seen on it since the year succeeding his nuptials.
The fruits of my uncle’s marriage were, as I have said, two boys and two girls. The eldest of these Geraldines, Tom, took to what ignorant doctors call poison—but country gentlemen, potation. My uncle declared, he knew from his own experience that a “little learning was a dangerous thing;” and therefore thought it better that Tom should have none at all! Tom therefore studied nothing but “Carolan’s receipt for drinking!” The art of writing his own name came pretty readily; but his penmanship went no further. At twenty-six he quarrelled with a vicious horse, which was easily offended. The animal, on his master’s striking him with a whip, returned the blow with his hoof (a horse’s fist); and on Tom being taken to his chamber and examined, it was found that he had left the greater part of his brains in the stable.
Jack, his brother, was now heir-apparent. His figure was nearly as grotesque, but only half the size of his father’s; his eyes were of the most cautious description, one closely watching his nose, the other glancing quite outward, to see that no enemy approached. He loved liquor as well as Tom, but could not get down so much of it. Nevertheless, after a pretty long life, he was concluded by rather extravagant and too frequent doses of port and potsheen.
I have already given some account of the castle of Moret as it formerly appeared. When I last saw it, some dozen of years back, it presented nothing remarkable save its ivy covering. The dwelling-house, which as it stood in my uncle’s time would have been worth detailing (had not every country gentleman’s mansion been of a similar genus), had declined into an ordinary residence. In Squire Stephen’s day, it was low, long, dilapidated, dirty, old, and ugly—and had defied paint, plaster and whitewash for at least the better half of a century. The barn, court, dunghill, pigeon-house, horse-pond, piggery, and slaughter-house, formed, as usual, the chief prospects from the parlour-windows; and on hot days the effluvia was so exquisite (they accounted it very wholesome) that one might clearly distinguish each several perfume.
My uncle never could contrive to stick on horseback, and therefore considered riding as a dangerous exercise for any gentleman. He used to say (it was indeed one of his standing jokes) that jockeys and vulgar persons, being themselves beasts, might stick by virtue of mutual attraction upon their own species; but that ladies and gentlemen were, as a matter of course, always subject to tumble off. He bred and kept, notwithstanding, four or five race-horses, which he got regularly trained; and at every running upon the heath or curragh, he entered such of them as were qualified by weight, &c.: yet, singularly enough, though the animals were well bred and well trained, not one, during the whole of the five-and-twenty years that he kept them, ever won a plate, prize, or race of any description: for all that, he would never sell either for any price; and when they got too old to run any more, they were turned out to end their days unmolested in a marsh and the straw-yard. It was said by those competent to judge that some of these animals were excellent; but that Squire Fitzgerald’s old groom used to give trials, and to physic the horses; and that (through his people) they were bought off when there was a probability of their winning. However, my uncle, so that none of them were distanced, was just as well pleased, exhibiting not the least uneasiness at their failure. Indeed, he never attended any of the races personally, or betted a shilling upon the event of one—circumstances which remind me of a certain judge, who was always sufficiently gratified by a simple conviction and by passing sentence on a culprit, eventually saving more lives by pardon than any two of his colleagues.
I was very young when taken to my uncle’s, for a stay of some months, by my grandmother; but at an age when strong impressions are sometimes made upon the memory. I was a great favourite, and indulged in every thing, even by my uncle; and very frequently, afterward, while my aunt lived at Moret in her widowhood, I visited there, every visit reminding me of former times, and recalling persons and things that might otherwise have been lost to my juvenile recollection. This latter was the period when, having nobody of my own age in the house to chatter to, I took delight in hearing the old people about Moret tell their long traditionary stories, which, as I observed in my first sketch (Vol. i.) descended from generation to generation with hereditary exactness; and, to the present day, I retain a fondness for hearing old occurrences detailed.
My eldest female cousin, Miss Dolly Fitzgerald, was at least twelve years older than I when I was first taken to Moret by my grandmother; the second, Miss Fanny, ten. Never, sure, did two sisters present such a contrast. Dolly was as like her father as rather more height and an uncommonly fair skin would permit; her tongue was too large for the mouth, and consequently thickened her pronunciation; her hair was yellow; her feet were like brackets, and her hands resembled milk-white shoulders of mutton. Her features were good; but her nostrils and upper lip displayed considerable love of the favourite comforter of her father. She was very good-natured, but ignorance personified.