Honor’s exculpatory harangue being with some difficulty silenced, a hundred antidotes were immediately suggested: Mrs. Burke, an excellent woman, soon found a receipt at the end of her cookery book for curing all manner of poisons (for they actually deemed us poisoned), either in man or beast; and the administration of this recipe was approved by one Mr. Dennis Shee, another family domestic, who said “he had been pysoned himself with some love-powders by a young woman who wanted to marry him, and was cured by the very same stuff the mistress was going to make up for the counsellors; but that any how he would run off for the doctor, who to be sure knew best about the matter.”
It was now fully agreed, that some of Denis Brown’s voters had got the poison from a witch at Braefield,[[24]] out of spite, and all the servants cried out that there was no luck or grace for any real gentleman in that quarter from the time George Robert was hanged.
[24]. In old times, Braefield near Turlow had been noted for witches, several of whom had been burned or drowned for poisoning cattle, giving love-powders to people’s childer ere they came to years of maturity, and bestowing the shaking ague on every body who was not kind to them. When I was at Turlow, they showed me near Braefield five high granite stones stuck up in the midst of a green field, which they called “the Witches of Braefield.” They said there was a witch under every one of these, buried a hundred feet deep “at any rate.”
Poor Mrs. Burke was miserable on every account, since the story of “two counsellors being poisoned at Rock House” would be such a stain on the family.
Being raised up in my bed against pillows, I began to think my complaint rather spasmodic than inflammatory, as I breathed better apace, and felt myself almost amused by the strange scenes going on around. Mrs. Burke had now prepared her antidote. Oil, salt, soapsuds, honey, vinegar, and whisky, were the principal ingredients. Of these, well shaken up in a quart bottle, she poured part down her nephew’s throat (he not being able to drink it out of a bowl), much as farriers drench a horse; and as soon as the first gulp was down, she asked poor Moore if he felt any easier. He answered her question only by pushing back the antidote, another drop of which he absolutely refused to touch. She made a second effort to drench him, lest it might be too late; but ere any thing more could be done, the doctor, or rather apothecary and man-midwife, arrived, when bleeding, blistering, &c. &c. were had recourse to, and on the third day I was totally recovered; my poor friend got better but slowly, and after two dangerous relapses.
The incidents which had taken place in Castlebar during the French invasion, three years before, were too entertaining not to be pried into (now I was upon the spot) with all my zeal and perseverance. The most curious of battles, which was fought there, had always excited my curiosity; I was anxious to discover what really caused so whimsical a defeat. But so extremely did the several narratives I heard vary—from the official bulletin to the tale of the private soldier, that I found no possible means of deciding on the truth but by hearing every story, and striking an average respecting their veracity, which plan, together with the estimate of probabilities, might, perhaps, bring me pretty near the true state of the affair. There had certainly been a battle and flight more humorous in their nature and result than any that had ever before been fought or accomplished by a British army; neither powder, ball, nor bayonet had fair claim to the victory; but to a single true blunder was attributable that curious defeat of our pampered army—horse, foot, and artillery,—in half an hour, by a handful of half-starved Frenchmen. So promptly (as I heard) was it effected, that the occurrence was immediately named—and I suppose it still retains the appellation—“The races of Castlebar.” I cannot vouch for any single piece of information I acquired; but I can repeat some of the best of it; and my readers may strike the average as I do, and form their own conclusions on the subject. At all events, the relation may amuse them; and, as far as the detail of such an event can possibly do, afford a glance at French and Irish, civil and military, high and low, aristocracy and plebeians:—undoubtedly proving that, after a battle is over, it suggests the simile of a lady after her baby is born—what was a cause of great uneasiness soon becomes a source of great amusement.
To attain this, my laudable object, the first thing I had to do was, as far as practicable, to fancy myself a general; and in that capacity, to ascertain the errors by which the battle was lost, and the conduct of the enemy after their victory. Experientia docet; and by these means I might obviate the same disaster on any future occasion. In pursuance of this fanciful hypothesis, my primary step was, of course, to reconnoitre the position occupied by our troops and those of the enemy on that engagement; and in order to do this with effect, I took with me a very clever man, a serjeant of the Kilkenny militia, who had been trampled over by Chapman’s heavy horse in their hurry to get off, and left with half his bones broken, to recover as well as he could. He afterward returned to Castlebar, where he married, and continued to reside. An old surgeon was likewise of our party, who had been with the army, and had (as he informed me) made a most deliberate retreat when he saw the rout begin. He described the whole affair to me, being, now and then, interrupted and “put in,” as the corporal called it, when he was running out of the course, or drawing the long-bow. Three or four country fellows (who, it proved, had been rebels), wondering what brought us three together, joined the group; and, on the whole, I was extremely amused.
The position shown me, as originally held by the defeated, seemed, to my poor civil understanding, one of the most difficult in the world to be routed out of. Our army was drawn up on a declivity of steep, rugged ground, with a narrow lake at its foot, at the right whereof was a sort of sludge-bog, too thick to swim in, and too thin to walk upon—snipes alone, as they said, having any fixed residence in, or lawful claim to it. On the other side of the lake, in front of our position, was a hill covered with underwood, and having a winding road down its side. In our rear was the town of Castlebar, and divers stone walls terminated and covered our left. None of my informants could agree either as to the number of our troops or cannon; they all differed even to the extent of thousands of men, and from four to twenty pieces of cannon. Every one of the parties, too, gave his own account in his own way. One of the rebels swore, that “though he had nothing but ‘this same little switch’ (a thick cudgel) in his fist, he knocked four or five troopers off their beasts, as they were galloping over himself, till the French gentlemen came up and skivered them; and when they were once down, the ‘devil a much life’ was long left in them.”