Nightly the captain and subaltern of the Castle Guard were invited to the Viceregal table, during which the kind old man clinked glasses and invited his every guest to take wine with him. How His Excellency could retain his head after all these courtesies was once a marvel till it transpired that the huge decanter before him was the weakest brandy and water diluted to the exact colour of Amontillado. And then the whist that followed at sixpenny points, when His Excellency rigorously prevented his partner—and his partner only—from seeing every card in his hand. How refreshing it all was!
No contortions short of dislocating their necks could prevent his adversaries from taking advantage of the dishonest opportunity, for the old gentleman cracked jokes throughout the entire rubber, and claimed and paid his sixpences with the scrupulousness of a confirmed gambler.
Among the Viceregal staff were some inflated specimens of vice-flunkeydom. Foster, Master of Horse, whose death occurred lately, was reputed as not knowing one end of a horse from another, and never ventured on a purchase for the Viceregal stables, at Farrell’s or Sewell’s, unless fortified by the close proximity of Andy Ryan or some other horse-coper. Burke, a Gentleman at Large and an ex-colonel of militia, was another warrior of the offensive type, and I shall never forget the scene when a youngster of the 16th Lancers at one of the levées gave him a peremptory order when he was officially glued to the staircase, under pretence that he mistook him for a flunkey. But the matter was not to end there, and before the réveille had ceased blowing at Island Bridge he was waited upon by a fiery buckeen to demand satisfaction on behalf of Kornel Burke.
Captain Stackpool (everybody had a military title) was another Dublin curiosity. Member of Parliament for Ennis, he affected Dublin and the delights of the Unoited Service from one year’s end to the other. Dublin, he assured me, was the most “car-driving, tea-drinking, money-spending city in the world,” and he was not far wrong.
Lord Louth, who weighed eighteen stone, and stood five foot seven in his stockings, had served some years in a kilted regiment; but he, too, has long since been gathered to his fathers.
About this time an amusing incident occurred to Lord Louth. The very best of fellows, his vanity was insatiable, and only London-built clothes were good enough to set off his graceful figure.
In the 14th Hussars was a diminutive cornet who also patronised the same tailor as Louth, and both these dandies—as appeared later—had telegraphed on the same day for a pair of the most bewitching trousers in preparation for some social event to which they had both been invited. Conceive the consternation of the two recipients when at the last moment a pair of diminutive pants revealed themselves to the enraged peer, and a garment sufficiently voluminous to engulf three Deal boatmen reached the expectant cornet. This latter was known as the “Shunter” from the extraordinary talents he developed later as a gentleman rider, and still later as a hanger-on of Abingdon Baird.
One of the most brilliant surgeons that Ireland or any other country has ever produced was just coming into prominence in those long-ago days. Dr. Butcher, who in appearance resembled the portraits of Disraeli in his younger days, was known professionally to nearly every man in the garrison; of the most enthusiastic type, he thought nothing of producing two or three stones from his waistcoat pocket and exultantly explaining that he had that morning taken them from certain patients’ interiors, and nothing gave him greater offence than refusing to attend one of his private séances. But the most marvellous operation he ever performed was on Billy Deane, of the 4th Dragoon Guards, who, having consulted every specialist in Europe, appealed to Butcher to save his arm and enable him to remain in the service.
A fall whilst hunting had resulted in the disease of the elbow-bone of the left arm.
“Nothing but taking your arm off will save your life,” was the universal fiat.