the surrounding districts. They were all first-class horsemen, and, needless to say, good sportsmen all round. One of these brothers was at the time Sub-Sheriff of Limerick. It was indeed a difficult post to fill in those days. The country was exceedingly disturbed. Evictions were all too frequent, with the accompanying result of riots and murders, and it required much pluck and tact to carry out the Sub-Sheriff’s duties. My major had been, some time previous to my joining, ordered to Singapore, while another major, a bachelor, was in command of the company at Limerick. In those days officers were allowed to exchange on the payment of fees agreed upon. My major did not relish the idea of proceeding to Singapore with his young family of eight, so he approached the bachelor major at Limerick with a view to an exchange, and offered a very handsome sum. The bachelor major very promptly accepted, and the exchange took place. Just before leaving Limerick the members of the club gave the bachelor major a farewell dinner, and, in proposing his health, the chairman remarked that he didn’t understand why anybody should wish to leave Limerick for such an awful place as Singapore. When answering the toast the bachelor major said he would tell them in confidence the real reason. He went on to say that a short time before he accepted the exchange he had been to dinner with friends, some nine miles away, across the Shannon, in County Clare. He was returning home with the old jarvey on an outside car, and as it was a fairly fine night, moonlight, and he had had a very good dinner, he was enjoying his pipe and now and again having a little doze. They were passing a piece of road which was bounded on one side by a somewhat thick hedge. Suddenly there was a flash and the loud report of a gun, which very promptly woke him and made the old jarvey sit up too, and pull his horse up. Immediately two heads popped up over the hedge, had a good look at the major, and then one of the men said, “Begorra, Pat, we’ve shot at the wrong man again,” and promptly disappeared. “Now, don’t you think, my friends, that it’s time I went to Singapore?”
But he never told them of the cheque he got to go to Singapore.
At that time the garrison of Limerick was fairly strong. There was a Field Artillery battery at the William Street Barracks, and there were a regiment of infantry and a squadron of cavalry at the New Barracks, so that our turn for any garrison duty didn’t come very often, and we had plenty of time to enjoy ourselves. Anyone who wished and who had sufficient horses could put in four or five days’ hunting a week during the season. The Master of the Limerick Hounds at the time lived at Croome. He was a typical Irish gentleman, noted for his genial character and the forcefulness of his language in the hunting field. Limerick is a fine hunting country, and gives excellent sport. There were many good riders in those days. Our friend the Sub-Sheriff was one, but perhaps the best man there was the owner of Ballynegarde, at whose hospitable house we spent many happy days. He must have ridden quite over sixteen stone, and I well remember seeing him, on a chestnut horse, clear the wall which surrounded the park, the chestnut changing his feet on the top, just like a cat. Good horses were just as expensive in those days as they were before the war, but we subalterns did not buy expensive horses; we picked up good jumpers that had gone cronk, and trusted to the vet., occasional firing, plenty of bandages, and not too hard work to keep them going.
Riding out one morning towards Mount Shannon, the then lovely home of the Fitzgibbons, on the banks of the river, and just on leaving the old town of Limerick, I arrived at a rather long and steep hill, at the foot of which a jarvey was trying to induce his horse, a long, rakish, Irish-built bay, to go up. The horse absolutely refused to do so, and each time the old jarvey flogged him he exhibited very considerable agility in every direction except up the hill. I rode up to the jarvey and asked him what was the matter. “Shure, sir,” he said, “I bought this horse to go up this hill, for I am the mail contractor on this road. I’ve got him here these last three mornings, and I’ve never got farther than this. Now I’ll have to go back again and get another horse, and all the people will get their mails late and they’ll report me, and they’ll fine me, and the divil do I know what my ould missus’ll have to say about it. And, shure, yer honour, ’tis all the fault of this donkey-headed old quadruped.”
I asked him whether the old quadruped could jump.
“Shure, yer honour,” he said, “he’d jump out of his harness, traces an’ all, if I hadn’t got him by the bit.”
“Will you sell him?” says I.
“Will I sell him?” says he. “Will I find the fool that’ll buy him, yer honour?”
“Bring him up to the old castle in the morning,” says I, “and I may find the fool that’ll buy him.”
“Begorra, sir,” says he, “yer a gintleman. I’ll be there with him at nine o’clock, with a halter round his old ewe neck.”
Next morning, at nine o’clock, just as the sergeant-major was reporting as usual, “All correct,” I saw my old friend leading his quadruped into the barrack square. He was a quaint looking horse. He was particularly full of corners, for he wasn’t furnished up above at all. But he had good-boned legs. His coat was by way of being a miracle to look at. He had no particular colour to speak of. In some places he was a bit of a roan – Taffy-like; round some other corners he was a dirty bay. In some places, especially where for the last three days he had attempted to get out of his harness at the bottom of the hill, there was no hair at all. But he had a good-looking eye; he had good sound feet; good bone, though his tail was hardly up to Cocker. Most of it, no doubt, was now part and parcel of the car.
I can well remember the look of the correct and austere sergeant-major – who himself was a bit of a sport, but who still considered himself “on parade” – as he cast his eye over that noble quadruped, and wondered what his lieutenant was about. I could see that he was asking himself, “Is he going to run a circus, and is this going to be the freak horse?”
“Mick,” says I, “if I get a saddle on the horse, will you ride him; come out with me and put him over a couple of jumps?”
“Shure, yer honour,” says he, “an’ so I will.”
“Sergeant-major,” says I, “tell my groom to put a saddle and bridle on this Rosinante” (at the mention of which name the sergeant-major looked perplexed) “and get one of the other horses ready for me.”
In a few minutes Mick and I were riding down the old street, making for a bit of open country. We soon came to a high road, bounded on each side by fairly stiff, stone walls. Having come to a gate on one side I pulled up.
“Now,” says I, “Mick, are you game to go into that field and take the double across the road?”
“Shure, I am,” says he; “but ’tis a long day, yer honour, since I had a jump. Would you lend me your whip? The old horse’ll want it, it may be.”
I gave him the whip, jumped off my nag, opened the gate, and away went Mick into the field. It was a sight to do one good. There was Mick, what he called his hat stuck on the back of his head, and what was left of his coat-tails flying in the air behind him, heading for the first stone wall, and, before you could say “knife,” he was over it like a bird, across the road, over the wall the other side, with a “whoop-la” that you could have heard in the cathedral in Limerick.
Just as well to mention that Rosinante’s age was what is known amongst horse-copers as “uncertain,” that is, anywhere between nine years old and twenty-four.
After that (it was not long before we were again at the Castle) I asked Mick Molloy how much he wanted for the horse. He said, “Shure, I’ll just take what I gave for it. He’s no good to me.”
I asked him how much that was, and he said, “Five pounds.”
I was so surprised, that he became quite apologetic, thinking he was asking too much, and quickly began to sing the praises of his mount. I at once disabused him of the idea by telling him
