“Come in any three of you, then, who can clearly swear Dan Dempsey barks like a dog,—no matter whether like a mastiff or a lurcher—and attempts to bite.”
The selection was accordingly made, and the affidavit sworn, to the effect that “Dan Dempsey had been bit by a mad dog; that he went mad himself, barked like any greyhound, and had no objection to bite whatever Christian came near him. Squire Palmer then directed them to go back to the Pike, and said they might smother Dan Dempsey if he barked any more in the morning; but told them to wait till then.
“Ah, then, at what hour, please your worship?” said Nan Bergin, accompanied by several other female voices, whose owners seemed rather impatient.
“Three hours after day-break,” said the magistrate: “but take care to send to Mr. Calcut, the coroner, to come and hold his inquest after Dan’s smothered. Take care of that, at your peril.”
“Never fear, please your worship,” said Ned Bergin.
They then gathered into a sort of consultation before the door, and bowing with the same respect as when they came, all set off, to smother Dan Dempsey of Rushhall Turnpike.
The magistrate’s instructions were accurately obeyed: Daniel barked, and was duly smothered between two feather-beds, three hours after day-break next morning, by the schoolmaster’s watch. Mr. Calcut came and held his coroner’s inquest, who brought in their verdict that the said “Daniel Dempsey died in consequence of a mad dog!”
The matter was not at that day considered the least extraordinary, and was, in fact, never mentioned except in the course of common conversation, and as the subject of a paragraph in the Leinster Journal.
It is a singular circumstance, that the termination of poor Palmer’s life resulted from his consistency in strictly keeping his own aphorism which I have before mentioned. He dined at my father’s Lodge at Cullenagh; and having taken his quantum sufficit, (as people who dined there generally did,) became obstinate, which is frequently the consequence of being pot-valiant, and insisted on riding home, twelve or thirteen miles, in a dark night. He said he had a couple of songs to write for the high sheriff, which Mr. Boyce from Waterford had promised to sing at the assizes;—and that he always wrote best with a full stomach. It was thought that he fell asleep; and that his horse, supposing he had as much right to drink freely as his master, had quietly paid a visit to his accustomed watering-place, when, on the animal’s stooping to drink, poor Palmer pitched over his head into the pond, wherein he was found next morning quite dead—though scarcely covered with water, and grasping the long branch of a tree as if he had been instinctively endeavouring to save himself, but had not strength, owing to the overpowering effect of the liquor. His horse had not stirred from his side. His loss was, to my father’s affairs, irreparable.
It is very singular that nearly a similar death occurred to an attorney, who dined at my father’s about a month afterward—old Allen Kelly of Portarlington, one of the most keen though cross-grained attorneys in all Europe. He came to Cullenagh to insist upon a settlement for some bills of costs he had dotted up against my father to the tune of fifty pounds. It being generally, in those times, more convenient to country gentlemen to pay by bond than by ready money—and always more agreeable to the attorney, because he was pretty sure of doubling his costs before the judgment was satisfied, Allen Kelly said, that, out of friendship, he’d take a bond and warrant of attorney for his fifty pounds; though it was not taxed, which he declared would only increase it wonderfully. The bond and warrant, which he had ready filled up in his pocket, were duly executed, and both parties were pleased—my father to get rid of Allen Kelly, and Allen Kelly to get fifty pounds for the worth of ten. Of course he stayed to dine, put the bond carefully into his breeches pocket, drank plenty of port and hot punch, to keep him warm on his journey, mounted his nag, reached Portarlington, where he watered his nag (and himself into the bargain). Hot punch, however, is a bad balance-master, and so Allen fell over the nag’s head, and the poor beast trotted home quite lonesome for want of his master. Next day Allen was found well bloated with the Barrow water; indeed, swollen to full double his usual circumference. In his pockets were found divers documents which had been bonds, notes, and other securities, and which he had been collecting through the country: but unfortunately for his administrators, the Barrow had taken pity on the debtors, and whilst Allen was reposing himself in the bed of that beautiful river, her naiads were employed in picking his pocket, and there was scarcely a bill, bond, note, or any acknowledgment, where the fresh ink had not yielded up its colouring; and neither the names, sums, dates, or other written matters, of one out of ten, could be by any means decyphered. In truth few of the debtors were very desirous, on this occasion, of turning decypherers, and my father’s bond (among others) was from that day never even suggested to him by any representative of Allen Kelly, the famous attorney of Portarlington.