The Reminiscences of an Irish Land AgentHussey, Samuel Murray
History
The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent
Hussey, Samuel Murray
Country life -- Ireland; Hussey, Samuel Murray, 1824-; Ireland -- History -- 1837-1901
Mrs. Cavanagh was walking along the road in Carlow carrying broth and
wine to a poor sick woman, when she found herself the target for a
number of stones and had to run for her life amid a shower of missiles.
Despite his exceptional infirmities Mr. Cavanagh could do almost
anything. He used to ride most pluckily to hounds, strapped on to his
saddle. On one occasion the saddle turned under him, and the horse
trotted back to the stable-yard, with his master hanging under him, his
hair sweeping the ground, bleeding profusely; he merely cursed the groom
with emphatic volubility, had himself more safely readjusted, and then
rode out once more.
He always wore pink when hunting. One day a pretty child of ten years
old was out with her groom, who followed the scent so ardently, that he
forgot all about his charge, who was left behind, and finding herself
lost in a wood, began to cry.
Suddenly there swooped out on a very big horse, the armless and legless
figure of Cavanagh in his flaming coat, and seeing her predicament, he
seized her rein somehow--she never seems quite clear how--saying:--
'Don't be frightened, little girl, for I know who you are, and will take
care of you.'
He was as good as his word, but the high-strung, sensitive child, so
soon as she was in her mother's embrace, went from one fit of hysterics
to another, crying:--
'Oh, mummy, I've seen the devil, I've seen the devil.'
In after years they became great friends, and he often dined with her
after she married and settled in London.
Reverting to Lord Kenmare, the following story, which in another version
recently won a railway story competition in some newspaper, really
pertains to his son Lord Castlerosse.
On a line in Kerry there is a sharp curve overhanging the sea. An old
woman in a great state of nervous agitation was bundled at the last
moment into a first-class compartment.
Lord Castlerosse, the only passenger in the compartment, by way of
relieving her obvious agitation, tried to calm her by telling her she
could change at the next station.
'Is it me that can be aisy,' she replied, 'when it's my Pat is driving
the engine, and him having a dhrop taken, and saying he'll take us a
shpin round the Head?'
After all, to my mind, for sheer humour of a quiet sort, nothing beats
the observation of the late Sir John Godfrey, who never got up before
one in the day, and invariably breakfasted when his family were having
lunch. Being asked one day to account for this rather inconvenient
habit, he replied:--
'The fact is, I sleep very slow.'
I commend this to every sluggard who wants an excuse to resume his
slumbers when awakened too soon.
There was a gentleman who had rather a red nose, and some one remarked
that it was an expensive piece of painting, to which some one else
significantly added, that it was not a water-colour.
'No,' said Sir John, 'it was done in distemper.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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