It was about a fortnight after this that, having returned to grimy old Lane’s, I received a characteristic letter from my old chum, George Hay. “Most of my time” (he wrote) “is spent in accompanying the old squire on his various peregrinations over the estate, and by pointing out various agricultural developments that were absolutely necessary, or structural alterations that would improve the holdings. He leads me to understand that my place was on the spot I would one day inherit, and the fitting moment would arrive after I got my company. ‘D— it, sir,’ he would continue, ‘in my time no eldest son remained longer than a year in the army unless he was prepared to pay £10,000 over regulation for the regiment as Cardigan did.’
“‘But in the infantry, sir,’ I suggested, ‘things are different. Promotion is slower, and I can’t help thinking that the bonds that unite officers to the regiment are stronger than is usually the case in the cavalry. But I see no prospect of my company till we are under orders for foreign service, and we shan’t be at the top of the roster for another two years at least.’
“‘I have nothing to say against the line, sir,’ he would reply, ‘except that your officers can rarely ride to hounds.’
“‘But surely, sir,’ I answered, ‘there are other virtues you will not deny to the linesman; in garrison towns they at all events appreciate hospitality, and don’t insult worthy folks by accepting their invitations only to turn them into ridicule. You may remember the story of a young puppy who replied to a kindly hostess by “The King’s never dance, and the King’s never sing,” and this in a regiment, forsooth, where every man-jack of them was a shopkeeper’s son, and which was known as the “Trades Union.”’”
Great excitement meanwhile prevailed at the Tower; the route had come, the mess was closed, and everybody was packing in preparation for an early departure for Ireland. Transports in those long-ago days were not the floating palaces inaugurated years later by the Indian troopers. Cranky steamers—whose principal industry was the transporting of pigs and cattle—were hurriedly chartered by the War Office, and with the men packed like herrings, and the junior officers billeted amongst the band instruments, regiments proceeded at five knots an hour from London to the Irish ports.
The Colonel, during these preparations, lost no opportunity of describing his experiences when last stationed in Dublin; how he and certain boon companions were within an ace of being tried for their lives for throwing into the Liffey an old watchman deposited in a sentry-box; how they started the “Pig and Whistle” in Sackville Street, run on lines that would shock you, virtuous reader; their nightly visits to the “Quane’s” Theatre, where Mikey Duff performed Hamlet, and declined to accede to the demands of the gallery for “Pat Molloy and the roising step” with the indignant retort: “D— yer oise, what do you expect for toppence;” the orgies of “Red bank” oysters at Burten Binden’s, and the dinners at the Bank of Ireland, when the regiment furnished the guard; how old Bill, after a drinking bout, would stamp through every corner of the guard-rooms, cursing at everything, and winding up by the consumption of half-a-dozen brandies and sodas, and “very different to what it was in the Peninsula!”
“Payther” Madden, too, was holding forth on what he would show them in Cark, if “plase the Lard the rigimint was quarthered in the ould station,” and went on to describe how Barny Magee “wad come on and sing at the Hole in the Wall with a gaythaar in his fist, looking for all the world like a hamstrung moke,” and how the gallery would shout, “For the love of dacency, Barny, dhrop yer concertina and pull up yer stockin’,” and how Mrs. Rooney, bless her soul, would pass yer the toime of day with that grace—so genteel loike, so obsarvent—as ye paid toll to go in, with: “God bless you, Carporal, it’s you that has the lip,” or ilse: “Go an wid ye, Carporal, for a flirrt that ye are.”
“A sort of bloomin’ sing-song,” suggested a cockney comrade, “but give me London, with ’er bloomin’ orange peel and hashfelt, with ’er boats down to North Woolwich, with yer gal on yer knee and a new clay in yer face; a pint of shrimps maybe, and a pint of ale down yer neck, and no bloomin’ guards.”
Amid these conflicting sentiments the regiment quitted the Tower.
And what a delightful station the Dublin of the sixties was; here Lord Carlisle as Lord-Lieutenant reigned supreme, and though compelled by usage to keep up the mock court, with its mock “Master of the Horse” and “Gentlemen at Large,” diffused hospitality like the fine old English gentleman he was.