The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
heads outwards; and it was the custom of the wilder spirits to go round
the tents at night, and playfully to rap the heads of the sleepers with
shillelaghs. One of the sleepers was most unfortunately killed by a
blow, and his slayer was brought before the magistrate, who condemned
him. Hereupon the policeman who had arrested the prisoner addressed
the magistrate:
"Your Honour," says he, "sure it is very well known that the deceased
had a terrible thin skull upon him, and I would be wanting in my duty
not to be telling your Honour the way the poor man's skull was
dangerous to him."
"'Tis the truth," broke in the prisoner eagerly. "Sure your Honour's
honour will be letting me off, for everyone knows that no man having a
thin skull does be having anny business to be at Cahirmee Fair."
During the paper-chases which we got up at Valparaiso, I met with a
nasty accident. My horse rose at some posts and rails, and crashed
through the top bar; after which I knew {520} no more except a shower
of stars and darkness. When I recovered consciousness, I found myself
being borne home on horseback, lying face down on the Chilian saddle,
which is made of thick rugs. The horse was being led by a Chilian
farmer, who was, I thought, taking me to the mortuary. But he was
really a good Samaritan. He had bathed my wounded face with
_aquadente_, and placed me on his horse. The scent and sting of the
_aquadente_ revived the moribund, and by the evening I was all right
again.
In the _Research_, in 1867, we had a quartette of hunting men, Cæsar
Hawkins, Lascelles, Forbes and myself. We used constantly to hunt
together. Lascelles was one of the best riders I have ever known. He
could take a horse through or over anything. The _Research_ was
stationed at Holyhead at that time, because it was believed that the
Fenians had planned to destroy the steamers running from Holyhead to
Ireland and back. I used to go across to Ireland from the _Research_
to hunt with the Ward Union near the Curragh, and return the same
night. A long way to cover.
"The Three Brothers'" race is still remembered in Ireland It was ridden
by Lord William, Lord Marcus, and myself. Each of us had his backers,
but the crowd was at first firmly convinced that the result of the race
had been arranged between us. I believe I had the best horse, but he
was unfortunately taken with an attack of influenza while he was coming
over from England in the boat. Lord William won by a short head from
Lord Marcus, and I was a length behind. Lord Marcus reminds me that
each of us, while secretly fancying himself intensely, enthusiastically
eulogised the other.
I quote the enthusiastic account of the race written by an eye-witness,
which appeared in _The Waterford News_ at the time. (_The Waterford
News_, 4th January, 1901. Account by Mr. Harry Sargant, from his
_Thoughts upon Sport_, and description in _The Waterford News_, The
Three Brothers' Race, 30th April, 1874.)
{521}
"Lords Charles, William, and Marcus Beresford had a sweepstake of 100
sovs. each, p.p., three miles, over the Williamstown Course, twelve
stone each, owners up. Lord Charles rode Nightwalker, a black
thoroughbred horse, and bred by Billy Power, the sporting tenant of the
course; Lord William rode Woodlark, a grey mare; and Lord Marcus was on
a bay gelding called The Weasel. They each wore the Beresford blue,
Lord Charles with the ancestral black cap, while the others had white
and blue caps as distinguishing emblems.
"No racecourse in Ireland, except Punchestown and Fairyhouse, ever had
more people on it than Williamstown had on that, the most memorable day
in its annals. Old men and women who had never before seen a race came
50 miles to see 'the Brothers' race.'" (Many persons slept on the
ground on the preceding night.) "Not a person, except the too aged and
incapacitated, was in a farmhouse within 10 miles of the course, while
the city was as deserted as if plague-stricken--all, all, flocked to
Williamstown. Excitement rose to boiling pitch as the three brothers
filed out of the enclosure and did the preliminary. I fancy now I see
them jogging side by side to the starting-post, where poor Tom Waters
awaited them, ready with ensign in hand to send them on their journey.
The only delay was while he delivered a short but sporting speech to
these three lads, when away they went, boot to boot. The pace was a
cracker from the start, but none made the running more than another,
for all three were girth to girth most of the journey, and at no time
did two lengths divide the first and last till just before the finish.
Yes, every post they made a winning-post; and ding-dong did they go at
each other, though, of course, riding like sportsmen. Fence after
fence was charged and cleared by them locked together, and it was not
until Nightwalker was beaten, just before the last fence, they
separated. A determined struggle between Woodlark and The Weasel then
ensued; and, after a desperate finish, old Judge Hunter gave the
verdict to the former 'by a short head.'
{522}
"Never was seen a better race of its class, nor was any ever ridden
more determinedly for victory. The scene of excitement on Williamstown
Course before and after it beggars description. Not a mouth was shut
or a voice lower than its highest pitch."
Two Irishmen who came from Australia, used to ride with our hounds, the
Curraghmore, in County Waterford. They were both very hard riders and
both so short-sighted as to be nearly blind. For these reasons they
used closely to follow my brother and myself; and we used to do our
best to get out of their way, as they were always on the top of us, but
in vain. For whenever they saw us sheering off they used to shout out,
"Go on, Lord Charles,"--or Lord William, or Lord Marcus, as the case
might be--"go on, I can't see but I can ride."
My brother Bill and I got a real good start one day with the
Curraghmore hounds. We led the field till we came to the river
Clodagh. The hounds swam the river, and we followed them, with the
water over our horses' girths. In jumping out, Bill got on the hard
bank, but in the place where I went, the water had undermined it. I
was on a little horse called Eden, which was not 15 hands, but which
had won the jumping prize at the Horse Show in Dublin. He was "a great
lepped harse," as the Irish say. He did his best, but the bank gave
under him, and he came right back on me in the water. When I got up,
both my stirrup leathers had slipped, and I saw the irons showing at
the bottom of the river. I had to go down under water to recover them.
I got out and rode to a public-house, the landlord of which was a
tenant of my brother Waterford.
"For the love of God, Lord Char-less, how did ye get that way at all at
all?" says he.
I told him, and,
"Can you give me a suit of clothes, as they will draw Ballydurn in the
afternoon, and I must be there?" said I.
"Divil a suit have I got," says he. "But there, his {523} Riverence is
just afther changing his clothes within, and I'm sure he'll be glad and
proud if you esconced yourself in his clothes, and he big enough to
cover two of yez."
I went upstairs, and there I found his Reverence's clericals on the
bed, and with that I stripped and put on his vest, shirt, trousers and
clerical coat. His great boots were elastic-sided, and I had to put
two copies of the _Cork Examiner_ newspaper in each to make them fit
me. He was a big man, over six feet high and weighing about twenty
stone; and his trousers were so long that when I turned them up
half-way to the knee, they still could go into the top of the boots, in
which I stowed them, tying string round the boots to keep the trousers
in. The trousers were so wide round the waist, that I had to button
the top button round on the opposite side brace button behind. The
coat was so long that it reached down half-way between my knees and
ankles.
Thus ecclesiastically garbed, I rode to the cover, and waited under a
bank for nearly an hour, hoping to hear the hounds. My teeth were
chattering with cold, and all I had on of my own was my hat. At last I
heard the horn, and at once a fine old fox broke. I waited till he got
afield and then knocked a bawl out of myself that would terrify a
neighbourhood. Out came the hounds and me on top of them, with two
fields' start, as I was wrong side of the cover down wind concealed
under a big bank. Then came over twenty minutes as hard as legs could
lay on to ground, and all the field wondering who his Reverence could
be that was leading the field, and where in God's name did he come
from--all except Bill. He knew that I had fallen in the river, he knew
Eden, and he laughed so that he could hardly sit his horse. When the
field came up, fox to ground, they nearly fell off their horses with
laughing. One farmer said to me:
"Begob, your Riverence, you will never be so near heaven again as on
the top of that terror of a high bank ye lepped!"
{524}
There was a lady, a very hard and jealous rider, who often hunted with
our hounds, and who was told one day that she must hold her own with
the Curraghmores, as some ladies from the neighbouring packs were out.
"Show me a Tipperary or a Kilkenny woman till I lep on the shmall of
her back," quoth she.
Every sportsman knows the delight of getting a good start and of
keeping it. I was riding with the Tipperaries, when Eden jumped a
tremendous big mearing (boundary); the others who faced it either fell
or refused; and thus we got three fields ahead of the rest of the
field, and ran the fox straight to ground in thirty-five minutes, Eden
keeping right on the tail of the hounds the whole way. Two or three
times I have got such a start and kept it, another occasion being in
Leicestershire, when I was riding a horse belonging to my sister-in-law.
Once with the Meath I got a long start by seeing which way the wind
was; and cutting a corner, I observed a man with a green collar doing
the same, and we both kept our lead. A fortnight later, stag-hunting
upon Exmoor, I got well away, when I saw a man ahead of me on my left.
At the end of the run, I observed that he had a green collar, and found
it was the same man. A curious coincidence.
Riding another of my Irish horses, Sea Queen, we were going down a
by-road, the hounds being on the right, when we came to an iron gate,
nearly 6 feet high. I was bending down to pull back the bolt, when the
mare suddenly jumped. She got her fore-part over, and it took me half
an hour to clear her. I was obliged to break the gudgeon of the gate.
Hunting at home at Curraghmore, I used to tell my brothers, all of whom
were cavalry officers, that I would engage to pick a hundred seamen
from the Fleet, who had never been on a horse, and to make them in six
weeks as fine a troop of cavalry as any in the kingdom. Naturally they
did not believe me, and chaffed the life out of me. But when my
brother Lord William went to South Africa, {525} to the Zulu war of
1879, he commanded three troops of irregular cavalry, the men of which
had been recruited straight from the merchant service. His troop
sergeant-major had been a mate. When my brother returned, he
acknowledged that my boast was justified. The fact was that in the old
sailing days, the sailor was so agile, athletic and resourceful a
creature, so clever with his hands, and so accustomed to keeping his
balance in every situation, that he could speedily acquire the seat and
the skill which other men must as a rule learn in childhood or not at
all. Anyhow, the seamen could stick on.
Many men never become easy on horseback. My experience in the hunting
field taught me that a man who is always fussily shouting, "Where the