Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 2 (of 3). Jonah Barrington

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СКАЧАТЬ it, the challenger is never bound to divulge it afterward.”

      My friend Crosby, as I have mentioned, subsequently attempted to go off from Dublin to England in a balloon of his own making, and dropped between Dublin and Holyhead into the sea, but was saved. The poor fellow some time after went abroad, and was supposed to have died far too early for friendship, – which he was eminently capable of exciting. I never saw two persons in face and figure more alike than Crosby and my friend Daniel O’Connell: but Crosby was the taller by two inches, and it was not so easy to discover that he was an Irishman.8

      DUELLING EXTRAORDINARY

      Frequency of election-duels – Ludicrous affair between Frank Skelton and an exciseman – Frank shoots the exciseman and runs away – His curious reasons – Sir J. Bourke’s quadrille duel, with five hits – Mr. H. D. G * * * y’s remarkable meeting with Counsellor O’Maher – O’Maher hit – Civil proposition of G * * *’s second – G * * *’s gallant letter to the author on his election for Maryborough – Honourable Barry Yelverton challenged by nine officers at once – His elucidation of the Fire-eaters’ Resolutions – Lord Kilkenny’s memorable duels and law-suits – His Lordship is shot by Mr. Ball, an attorney – The heir to his title (the Hon. Somerset Butler) challenges Counsellor Burrowes – The latter hit, but his life saved by some gingerbread nuts – Lord Kilkenny’s duel with Counsellor Byrne – The counsellor wounded – Counsellor Guinness escapes a rencontre – Sketch of Counsellor M‘Nally – His duel with the author – His three friends: all afterward hanged – M‘Nally wounded – Bon-mot of Mr. Harding – The affair highly beneficial to M‘Nally – His character, marriage, and death – Ancient mode of fighting duels – The lists described – Duel of Colonel Barrington with Squire Gilbert on horseback – Both wounded – Gilbert’s horse killed – Chivalrous conclusion.

      Our elections were more prolific in duels than any other public meetings: they very seldom originated at a horse-race, cock-fight, hunt, or at any place of amusement: folks then had pleasure in view, and “something else to do” than to quarrel: but at all elections, or at assizes, or, in fact, at any place of business, almost every man, without any very particular or assignable reason, immediately became a violent partisan, and frequently a furious enemy to somebody else; and gentlemen often got themselves shot before they could tell what they were fighting about.

      At an election for Queen’s County, between General Walsh and Mr. Warburton, of Garryhinch, about the year 1783, took place the most curious duel of any which occurred within my recollection. A Mr. Frank Skelton, one of the half-mounted gentlemen described in the early part of the first volume, – a boisterous, joking, fat young fellow, called a harmless blackguard, – was prevailed on, much against his grain, to challenge Roberts, the exciseman of the town, for running the butt-end of a horse-whip down his throat the night before, while he sat drunk and sleeping with his mouth open. The exciseman insisted that snoring at a dinner-table was a personal offence to every gentleman in company, and would therefore make no apology.

      Frank, though he had been nearly choked, was very reluctant to fight; he said “he was sure to die if he did, as the exciseman could snuff a candle with his pistol-ball; and as he himself was as big as a hundred dozen of candles, what chance could he have?” We told him jocosely to give the exciseman no time to take aim at him, by which means he might perhaps hit his adversary first, and thus survive the contest. He seemed somewhat encouraged and consoled by the hint, and most strictly did he adhere to it.

      Hundreds of the towns-people went to see the fight on the green of Maryborough. The ground was regularly measured; and the friends of each party pitched a ragged tent on the green, where whiskey and salt beef were consumed in abundance. Skelton having taken his ground, and at the same time two heavy drams from a bottle his foster-brother had brought, appeared quite stout till he saw the balls entering the mouths of the exciseman’s pistols, which shone as bright as silver, and were nearly as long as fusils. This vision made a palpable alteration in Skelton’s sentiments: he changed colour, and looked about him as if he wanted some assistance. However, their seconds, who were of the same rank and description, handed to each party his case of pistols, and half-bellowed to them – “blaze away, boys!”

      Skelton now recollected his instructions, and lost no time: he cocked both his pistols at once; and as the exciseman was deliberately and most scientifically coming to his “dead level,” as he called it, Skelton let fly.

      “Holloa!” said the exciseman, dropping his level, “I’m battered, by J – s!”

      “Oh! the devil’s cure to you!” said Skelton, instantly firing his second pistol.

      One of the exciseman’s legs then gave way, and down he came on his knee, exclaiming, “Holloa! holloa! you blood-thirsty villain! do you want to take my life?”

      “Why, to be sure I do!” said Skelton. “Ha! ha! have I stiffened you, my lad?” Wisely judging, however, that if he staid till the exciseman recovered his legs, he might have a couple of shots to stand, he wheeled about, took to his heels, and got away as fast as possible. The crowd shouted; but Skelton, like a hare when started, ran the faster for the shouting.

      Jemmy Moffit, his own second, followed, overtook, tripped up his heels, and cursing him for a disgraceful rascal, asked “why he ran away from the exciseman?”

      “Ough thunther!” said Skelton, “how many holes did the villain want to have drilled into his carcase? Would you have me stop to make a riddle of him, Jemmy?”

      The second insisted that Skelton should return to the field, to be shot at. He resisted, affirming that he had done all that honour required. The second called him “a coward!”

      “By my sowl,” returned he, “my dear Jemmy Moffit, may be so! you may call me a coward, if you please; but I did it all for the best.”

      “The best? you blackguard!”

      “Yes,” said Frank: “sure it’s better to be a coward than a corpse! and I must have been either one or t’other of them.”

      However, he was dragged up to the ground by his second, after agreeing to fight again, if he had another pistol given him. But, luckily for Frank, the last bullet had stuck so fast between the bones of the exciseman’s leg that he could not stand. The friends of the latter then proposed to strap him to a tree, that he might be able to shoot Skelton; but this being positively objected to by Frank, the exciseman was carried home: his first wound was on the side of his thigh, and the second in his right leg; but neither proved at all dangerous.

      The exciseman, determined on gauging Frank, as he called it, on his recovery challenged Skelton in his turn. Skelton accepted the challenge, but said he was tould he had a right to choose his own weapons. The exciseman, knowing that such was the law, and that Skelton was no swordsman, and not anticipating any new invention, acquiesced. “Then,” said Skelton, “for my weapons, I choose my fists: and, by the powers, you diabolical exciseman, I’ll give you such a basting that your nearest relations shan’t know you.” Skelton insisted on his right, and the other not approving of this species of combat, got nothing by his challenge; the affair dropped, and Skelton triumphed.

      The only modern instance I recollect to have heard of as applicable to No. 25., (refer to the regulations detailed in last sketch,) was that of old John Bourke, of Glinsk, and Mr. Amby Bodkin. They fought near Glinsk, and the old family steward and other servants brought out the present Sir John, then a child, and held him upon a man’s shoulder, to see papa fight. On that occasion, both principals and seconds engaged: they stood at right angles, ten paces distant, and all began firing together on СКАЧАТЬ