The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent | Page 5

know they shrink in the washing,' which satisfied
the grumbler. And that always seemed to me the strangest part of the
story.
In those days religious feeling ran pretty high--I will not go so far as to
say it has entirely died down to-day--and the usual Protestant toast
was:--
'The Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender.'
Now, Jerry was a Roman Catholic, none the less earnest because he had
a merry way with him. On a certain Friday he was seen to be fasting by
a very foppish barrister, who thought a great deal of himself.
He remarked to Jerry, with unnecessary impertinence:--
'Sir, it appears you have some of the Pope in your stomach.'
To which Jerry, quick as a pistol-shot, retorted:--
'And you have the whole of the Pretender in your head,' after which
there was the devil to pay.
There was a certain Chancellor in Ireland who was born a few years
after his father and mother had separated. As he did not like Jerry, he
used to make a great fuss about how he should pronounce his name. At
last in Court one day he burst out:--
'Pray tell me what you wish me to call you--Mr. Kellegher, or Mr.
Kellaire?'
'Call me anything you like, my lud, so long as you call me born in
wedlock.'

The Chancellor did not score that time.
At one time there were grave complaints made about the light-hearted
way in which Jerry handled his cases, and his practice fell off. He was
conversing with a very stupid judge, lately elevated to the Bench, and
observed:--
'It's a very extraordinary world: you have risen by your gravity, and I
have fallen by my levity.'
He had a son who, in my time, had a large practice at the Bar, but I
never came across him, nor did I ever hear that there was anything
remarkable about him, except that he was not so witty as his father,
which was not wonderful.
After all, as Jerry was before my own experience, I must not delay over
him, so I will only give one more tale about him, and pass on.
When Lord Avonmore got his peerage for voting for the Union, he had
his patent of nobility read out at a dinner-party, and it commenced,
'George, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.'
'Stop,' cried Jerry, 'I object to that. The consideration is set out too early
in the deed.'
This long digression over, I revert to my father about whose respectable
practice at the Four Courts I know nothing except that he allowed
others to become judges, and did not find solicitors putting his services
up to auction.
By the death of his elder brother, he succeeded to a property, near
Dingle, on which he went to live and then got married, which was the
wisest thing that he could do.
My mother was Mary Hickson, and her descent was this wise.
The Murrays were said to have come to Scotland from Moravia in the
first century; and a pretty bulky history of the clan reveals as much

truth about them as the author cared to put in when tired of inventing
less probable facts. Sir Walter Murray, Lord of Drumshegrat, came to
Ireland with Edward de Bruce and was killed in battle, leaving three
sons, one of whom, christened Andrew, settled in County Down. Some
of his descendants migrated to Bantry, where, in 1670, William Murray
married Ann Hornswell, and was succeeded by his third son George,
who was in turn succeeded by his eldest son William, who married
Anne Grainger. Of the marriage, there was only one daughter Judith,
who married Robert Hickson, heir to the property.
They had five sons and two daughters, the younger of whom married
Sir William Cox, and the elder my father.
The superior of my dear mother never drew the breath of life. She lived
until I was twenty-five, and I never met any man who could say more
than I could for my mother, though equalled by what my own sons
could say of theirs, and she too came of the same stock, for I married
my first cousin, Julia Agnes Hickson. It is said no man is thoroughly
happy until he is suitably married, an opinion I absolutely endorse; but
happiness so great as my married life is not of public interest, and if it
were, I should not wear my heart on my sleeve for general inspection.
Any tribute from me to my dear wife would be superfluous; the
devoted love of our children has been the endorsement by the next
generation of the feelings which I have always felt towards her.
She was the daughter of my mother's eldest brother, John Hickson,
called the Sovereign of Dingle. He