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

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      The first procedure on this determination was a direct challenge from his Lordship to the attorney, Mr. Ball: it was accepted, and a duel immediately followed, in which his Lordship got the worst of it. He was wounded by the attorney at each shot, the first taking place in his Lordship’s right arm, which probably saved the solicitor, as his Lordship was a most accurate marksman. The noble challenger received the second bullet in his side, but the wound was not dangerous. The attorney’s skin remained quite whole.

      My Lord and the attorney having been thus disposed of for the time being, the Honourable Somerset Butler (his Lordship’s son) now took the field, and proceeded, according to due form, by a challenge to Mr. Peter Burrowes, &c., the senior of the adversaries’ counsel (now judge commissioner of insolvents). The invitation not being refused, the combat took place, one chilly morning, near Kilkenny. Somerset knew his business well; but Peter had had no practice whatever in that line of litigation– being good tempered and peaceable.

      Few persons feel too warm on such occasions, of a cold morning, and Peter formed no exception to the general rule. An old woman who sold spiced gingerbread nuts in the street they passed through accosted the party, extolling her nuts to the very skies, as being well spiced, and fit to expel the wind, and to warm any gentleman’s stomach and bowels as well as a dram. Peter bought a pennyworth on the advice of his second, Dick Waddy, an eminent attorney, and duly receiving the change of a sixpenny-piece, marched off to the scene of action munging his gingerbread.

      Preliminaries being soon arranged – the pistols given – ten steps measured – the flints hammered – and the feather-springs set – Somerset, a fine dashing young fellow, full of spirit, activity, and animation, after making a few graceful attitudes, and slapping his arms together as hackney-coachmen do in frosty weather, to make their fingers supple – gave elderly Peter (who was no posture-master) but little time to take his fighting position: – in fact, he had scarcely raised his pistol to a wabbling level, before Somerset’s ball came crack-dash against Peter’s body! The halfpence rattled in his pocket: Peter dropped; Somerset fled; Dick Waddy roared “murder,” and called out to Surgeon Pack. Peter’s clothes were ripped up; and Pack, secundum artem, examined the wound: – something like a black hole designated the spot where the lead had penetrated the abdomen. The doctor shook his head, and pronounced but one short word – “mortal!” – it was, however, more expressive than a long speech. Peter groaned; his friend Waddy began to think about the coroner; his brother barristers sighed heavily, and Peter was supposed to be departing this world (but, as they all endeavoured to persuade him, for a better); – when Surgeon Pack, after another fatal, taking leave of Peter, and leaning his hand on the grass to assist him in rising, felt something hard, took it up, and looked at it curiously: the spectators closed in the circle, to see Peter die; the patient turned his expiring eyes toward Surgeon Pack, as much as to say – “Good bye to you all, lads!” – when lo! the doctor held up to the astonished assembly the identical bullet, which, having rattled among the heads and harps, and gingerbread nuts, in Peter’s waistcoat-pocket, had flattened its own body on the surface of a copper, and left His Majesty’s bust distinctly imprinted and accurately designated, in black and blue shading, on his subject’s carcase! Peter’s heart beat high; and finding that his Gracious Sovereign, and the gingerbread, had saved his life, lost as little time as possible in rising from the sod: a bandage was applied round his body, and in a short time he was able (though of course he had no reason to be over-willing) to begin another combat.9

      His Lordship having now, on his part, recovered from the attorney’s wounds, considered it high time to recommence hostilities according to his original plan of the campaign; and the engagement immediately succeeding was between him and the late Counsellor John Byrne, king’s counsel, and next in rotation of his learned adversaries.

      His Lordship was much pleased with the spot upon which his son had chosen to hit Counsellor Peter, and resolved to select the same for a hit on Counsellor John. The decision appeared to be judicious; and, as if the pistol itself could not be ignorant of its destination, and had been gratified at its own previous accuracy and success, (for it was the same,) it sent a bullet in the identical level, and Counsellor Byrne’s carcase received a precisely similar compliment with Counsellor Burrowes’s: – with this difference; that as the former had no gingerbread nuts, the matter appeared more serious. I asked him during his illness how he felt when he received the crack? he answered, just as if he had been punched by the mainmast of a man of war! – certainly a grand simile; but how far my friend Byrne was enabled to form the comparison he never divulged to me.

      My Lord having got through two counsellors, and his son a third, it became the duty of Captain Pierce Butler (brother to Somerset) to take his turn in the lists. The barristers now began not much to relish this species of argument; and a gentleman who followed next but one on the list owned fairly to me, that he would rather be on our side of the question: but it was determined by our noble client, so soon as the first series of combats should be finished, to begin a new one, till he and the lads had tried the mettle or “touched the inside” of all the remaining barristers. Mr. Dick Guinness, a very good-humoured, popular, lisping,10 dapper little pleader, was next on the list; and the Honourable Pierce Butler, his intended slaughterer, was advised, for variety’s sake, to put what is called the onus on that gentleman, and thereby force him to become the challenger, – which he was told by a young parson would considerably diminish the crime of killing him.

      Dick’s friends kindly and candidly informed him that he could have but little chance – the Honourable Pierce being one of the most resolute of a courageous family, and quite an undeviating marksman: that he had, besides, a hot, persevering, thirsty spirit, which a little fighting would never quench: and as Dick was secretly informed that he would to a certainty be forced to battle (it being his turn), and his speedy dissolution being nearly as certain, he was recommended to settle all his worldly concerns without delay.

      But it was to be otherwise. – Providence took Dick’s part, and decided that there should be no coroner’s inquest held on his body. The Honourable Pierce injudiciously put his onus (and rather a wicked one) on Dick in open court before the judge; an uproar ensued, and the Honourable Pierce hid himself under the table: however, the sheriff lugged him out, and prevented that encounter effectually; Pierce with great difficulty escaping immediate incarceration on giving his honour never to meddle with Dick, his members, or appurtenances, for three years, commencing from the day of his onus. This was an interruption which the Kilkenny family could not have foreseen; and at length his Lordship, finding that neither the laws of the land, nor those of battle, were likely to adjust affairs to his satisfaction, suffered them to be terminated by the three duels already narrated.

      Counsellor Leonard M‘Nally, well known both at the English and Irish bars, and in the dramatic circles as author of that popular little piece “Robin Hood,” &c., was one of the strangest fellows in the world. His figure was ludicrous: he was very short, and nearly as broad as long: his legs were of unequal length, and he had a face which no washing could clean: he wanted one thumb, the absence of which gave rise to numerous expedients on his part; and he took great care to have no nails, as he regularly eat every morning the growth of the preceding day: he never wore a glove, lest he should appear to be guilty of duplicity in concealing the want of thumb. When in a hurry, he generally took two thumping steps with the short leg, to bring up the space made by the long one; – and the bar, who never missed a favourable opportunity of naming people, called him “one pound two.” As being a poet, the bar wags termed him “Olympus.” He possessed, however, a fine eye, and by no means an ugly countenance; a great deal of middling intellect; a shrill, full, good forensic voice; great quickness at cross examination, with sufficient adroitness at defence; and in Ireland he was both the staff and standing-dish of the СКАЧАТЬ