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

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      After I was called to the bar, Counsellor Fletcher, the doctor’s son (already mentioned in a former Vol.), was in the best of practice. On my first circuit, I did not know him, and of course wished to make acquaintance with my seniors. Lord Norbury went circuit as judge at the same time I went first as barrister; he therefore can be no juvenile at this time of day.

      Fletcher was, as has already been mentioned, of very uncertain humour, and when not pleased, extremely repulsive. The first day I was on circuit he came into the bar-room, perhaps tired, or – what was far worse to him – hungry, for nothing ruffled Fletcher so much as waiting for dinner. Wishing to lose no time in making acquaintance with any countryman and brother barrister, and supposing he was endowed with the same degree of urbanity as other people, I addressed him in my own civil, but perhaps over-vivacious manner. He looked gruff, and answered my first question by some monosyllable. I renewed my address with one of the standing interrogatories resorted to by a man who wishes to fall into conversation. – Another monosyllable.

      I was touched: – “You don’t know me, perhaps, Counsellor Fletcher?” said I.

      “Not as yet, sir,” said Fletcher.

      I was angry: – “Then I’ll refresh your memory,” said I. “Your father killed mine.”

      The barristers present laughed aloud.

      “I hope you don’t mean to revenge the circumstance on me, sir?” said Fletcher, with a sardonic smile.

      “That,” said I, “depends entirely on your making me an apology for your father’s ignorance. I forgive your own.”

      He seemed surprised at the person he had to deal with, but no increase of ire was apparent. He looked, however, rather at a loss. The laugh was now entirely against him, when Warden Flood (my predecessor in the Admiralty), who was then father of the circuit bar, happened to come in, and formally introduced me as a new member.

      After that time Fletcher and I grew very intimate: – he had several good qualities, and these induced me to put up with many of his humours. He was a very clever man, possessing good legal information; had a clear and independent mind, and never truckled to any one because he was great. He often wrangled, but never quarrelled with me, and I believe I was one of the few who maintained a sincere regard for him. He was intimate with Judge Moore, who now sits in his place, and was the most familiar friend I had at Temple. I have alluded to Judge Fletcher incidentally, as a public character who could not be bribed to support the Union, and was appointed a judge by the Duke of Bedford during his short viceroyalty.

      I have introduced Doctor Fletcher’s medical practice in my glance at the Irish faculty, the more particularly, because I was present at another consultation held with him, which was (as I hinted at the commencement of this sketch) connected with as droll an incident as any could be, little short of terminating fatally.

      I rode with Mr. Flood, of Roundwood, to the meeting of a turnpike-board, held at Mount Rath, a few miles from my father’s house. One of the half-mounted gentlemen already described, Sam Doxy of the Derrys, being on his way to the same meeting, just at the entrance of the town his horse stumbled over a heap of earth, and, rolling over and over (like the somerset of a rope-dancer), broke the neck of his rider. The body was immediately – as usual when country gentlemen were slain in fox-hunting, riding home drunk at nights, or the like – brought on a door, and laid upon a bed spread on the floor at the next inn. Mr. Knaggs, the universal prescriber, &c. for the town and vicinity, was sent for to inspect the corpse, and Doctor Fletcher being also by chance in the place, was called into the room to consult as to the dead man, and vouch that the breath was out of the body of Mr. Samuel Doxy of the Derrys.

      The two practitioners found he had no pulse, not even a single thump in his arteries (as Doctor Knaggs emphatically expressed it). They therefore both shook their heads. His hands being felt, were found to be cold. They shook their heads again. The doctors now retired to the window, and gravely consulted: first, as to the danger of stumbling horses; and second, as to the probability of the deceased having been sober. They then walked back, and both declared it was “all over” with Mr. Doxy of the Derrys. His neck was broken – otherwise dislocated; his marrow-bones (according to Dr. Knaggs) were disjointed; and his death had of course been instantaneous. On this decisive opinion being promulgated to the turnpike-board, Dr. Fletcher mounted his pony, and left the town, to cure some other patient.

      The coroner, Mr. Calcut, was sent for to hold his inquest before Sam’s body could be “forwarded” home to the Derrys; and Mr. Knaggs, the apothecary, remained in the room, to see if any fee might be stirring when his relations should come to carry away the dead carcase; when, all of a sudden, an exclamation of “by J – s!” burst forth from Mr. Jerry Palmer (already mentioned) of Dureen, near Castle Durrow, an intimate acquaintance of Sam Doxy: “I don’t think he’s dead at all: – my father often made him twice deader at Dureen, with Dan Brennan’s double-proof, and he was as well and hearty again as any dunghill cock early in the morning.”

      “Not dead!” said Knaggs with surprise and anger. “Is not dead, you say? – Lieutenant Jer Palmer, you don’t mean to disparage my skill, or injure my business in the town, I hope? There is no more life left in Sam Doxy than in the leg of that table.”

      The lieutenant bristled up at the doctor’s contradiction. “I don’t care a d – n, Pothecary Knaggs, either for your skill, your business, or yourself; but I say Sam Doxy is not dead, and I repeat that I have seen him twice as dead at Dureen, and likewise, by the same token, on the day Squire Pool’s tenants of Ballyfair had a great dinner in Andrew Harlem’s big room at Maryborough.”

      “Pothecary Knaggs” was now much chagrined. “Did you ever hear the like, gentlemen of the turnpike-board?” said he. “Is it because the lieutenant was in the American wars that he thinks he knows a corpse as well as I do?”

      “No I don’t do that same,” said Palmer: “for they say here that you have made as many dead bodies yourself as would serve for a couple of battles, and a few skirmishes into the bargain. But I say Sam is not dead, by J – s!”

      “Well now, gentlemen,” said Knaggs, appealing to public candour from the rough treatment of the lieutenant, “you shall soon see, gentlemen, with all your eyes that I am no ignoramus, as the lieutenant seems to say.” Then opening his case of instruments and strapping a large operation knife on the palm of his fist, “now, gentlemen of the turnpike-board,” pursued he, “I’ll convince you all that Sam Doxy is as dead as Ballaghlanagh.8 Its a burning shame for you, Lieutenant Jer Palmer, to be after running down a well-known practitioner in this manner, in his own town. Gentlemen, look here, now, I’ll show you that Sam is dead. Living, indeed! Oh, that’s a fine story!”

      We all conceived that Doctor Knaggs only intended to try to bleed him; and with this impression flocked round the body. Doctor Knaggs turned the corpse on one side, took off the cravat, and the neck appeared to have somewhat of a bluish look on one side. “Now, gentlemen,” said he, “here’s the spot (pressing it with his finger): the spinal marrow is injured, perhaps in more places than one, or two either; the bones are dislocated, and the gristle between them is knocked out of its place. The formation of a gentleman’s neck is just the same as that of a horse’s tail; and as most of you have either yourselves docked and nicked, or been present at the docking and nicking of the tail of a hunter, you’ll understand precisely the structure of Sam Doxy’s vertebre. Now, gentlemen, (all this time placing Sam’s head in a convenient position to make an incision, or, had the coroner been present, to cut the head off, for clearer demonstration,) see, now, I’ll just make a slight longitudinal gash along the back joints of the neck, and by withdrawing the skin and the covering СКАЧАТЬ