Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3). Jonah Barrington
in picking his pocket, and there was scarcely a bill, bond, note, or any acknowledgment, where the fresh ink had not yielded up its colouring; and neither the names, sums, dates, or other written matters, of one out of ten, could be by any means decyphered. In truth few of the debtors were very desirous, on this occasion, of turning decypherers, and my father’s bond (among others) was from that day never even suggested to him by any representative of Allen Kelly, the famous attorney of Portarlington.
SKINNING A BLACK CHILD
Lieutenant Palmer and his black servant – The Lieutenant’s sister marries Mr. George Washington, a “blood relation” of the American president – This lady presents her husband with a son and heir – Awkward circumstance connected with the birth of the infant – Curious and learned dissertation respecting “fancy-marks,” &c. – A casus omissus– Speculations and consultations – Doctor Bathron, surgeon and grocer – His suggestion respecting little Washington – Doctor Knaggs called in – Operation begun – Its ill success – “Black and all Black” – The operator’s dismay and despair – Final catastrophe of Master Washington.
Another, and a not unpleasant, because not fatal, incident may serve to illustrate the “state of medicine and surgery,” between forty and fifty years ago, in Ireland. It occurred near my brother’s house, at Castlewood, and the same Lieutenant Palmer, of Dureen, was a very interested party in it. The thing created great merriment among all the gossiping, tattling old folks, male and female, throughout the district.
The lieutenant having been in America, had brought home a black lad as a servant, who resided in the house of Dureen with the family. It is one of the mysteries of nature, that infants sometimes come into this world marked and spotted in divers fantastical ways and places, a circumstance which the faculty, so far as they know any thing about it, consider as the sympathetic effect either of external touch or ardent imagination; – or, if neither of these are held to be the cause, then they regard it as a sort of lusus with which Dame Nature occasionally surprises, and then (I suppose) laughs at the world, for marvelling at her capriciousness, – a quality which she has, as satirists pretend, plentifully bestowed on the fairest part of the creation. Be this as it may, the incident I am about to mention is in its way unique; and whether the occasion of it proceeded from sympathy, fancy, or touch, or exhibited a regular lusus Naturæ, never has, and now never can be unequivocally decided.
A sister of the lieutenant, successively a very good maiden, woman, and wife, had been married to one Mr. George Washington, of the neighbourhood, who, from his name, was supposed to be some distant blood relation to the celebrated General Washington; and, as that distinguished individual had no children, all the old women and other wiseacres of Durrow, Ballyragget, Ballyspellen, and Ballynakill, made up their minds that his Excellency, when dying, would leave a capital legacy in America to his blood relation, Mr. George Washington, of Dureen, in Ireland; who was accordingly advised – and, with the aid of the Rev. Mr. Hoskinson, clergyman of Durrow (father to the present Vice Provost of Dublin University), he took the advice – to write a dignified letter to his Excellency, General George Washington of Virginia, President, &c. &c. &c. stating himself to have the honour of entertaining hopes that he should be enabled to show his Excellency, by an undeniable pedigree (when he could procure it) that he had a portion of the same blood as his Excellency’s running in his humble veins. The letter went on to state, that he had espoused the sister of a British officer, who had had the honour of being taken prisoner in America; and that he, the writer, having reasonable expectation of shortly fathering a young Mr. Washington, his Excellency’s permission was humbly requested for the child to be named his god-son: till the receipt of which permission, the christening should be kept open by his most faithful servant and distant relation, &c.
This epistle was duly despatched to his Excellency, at Mount Vernon, in Virginia, and Mrs George Washington, of Dureen, lost no time in performing her husband’s promise. No joy ever exceeded that which seized on Mr. Washington, when it was announced that his beloved wife had been taken ill, and was in excessive torture. The entire household, master included, were just seated at a comfortable and plentiful dinner; the first slices off the round, or turkey, were cut and tasted; some respectable old dames of the neighbourhood had just stepped in to congratulate the family on what would occur, and hear all that was going forward at this critical, cheerful, and happy moment of anticipation, when Mrs. Gregory (the lady’s doctor), who was, in her own way, a very shrewd, humorous kind of body, and to whom most people in that country under thirty-five years of age had owed their existence, entered the apartment to announce the happy arrival of as fine a healthy little boy as could be, and that Mrs. Washington was as well, or indeed rather better, than might be expected under the circumstances. A general cheer by the whole company followed, and bumpers of hot punch were drunk with enthusiasm to the success and future glory of the young General Washington.
Mrs. Gregory at length beckoned old Mrs. Palmer to the window with a mysterious air, and whispered something in her ear; on hearing which, Mrs. Palmer immediately fell flat on the floor, as if dead. The old dames hobbled off to her assistance, and Mrs. Gregory affected to feel strongly herself about something, – ejaculating, loud enough to be generally heard, and with that sort of emphasis people use when they wish to persuade us they are praying in downright earnest, “God’s will be done!”
“What about?” said the lieutenant, bristling up: – “I suppose my mother has taken a glass too much: it is not the first time! – she’ll soon come round again, never fear. Don’t be alarmed, my friends.”
“God’s will be done!” again exclaimed the oracular Mrs. Gregory.
“What’s the matter? What is all this about?” grumbled the men. “Lord bless us! what can it be?” squalled the women.
“There cannot be a finer or stronger little boy in the ’varsal world,” said Mrs. Gregory: “but, Lord help us!” continued she, unable longer to contain her overcharged grief, “It’s – it’s not so – so white as it should be!”
“Not white?” exclaimed every one of the company simultaneously.
“No, – O Lord, no!” answered Mrs. Gregory, looking mournfully up to the ceiling in search of heaven. Then casting her eyes wistfully around the company, she added – “God’s will be done! but the dear little boy is – is – quite black!”
“Black! black!” echoed from every quarter of the apartment.
“As black as your hat, if not blacker,” replied Mrs. Gregory.
“Oh! Oh – h!” groaned Mr. Washington.
“Oh! Oh – h!” responded Mrs. Gregory.
“Blood and ouns!” said the lieutenant. – “See how I am shaking,” said the midwife, taking up a large glass of potsheen and drinking it off to settle her nerves.
What passed afterward on that evening may be easily surmised: but the next day Mrs. Gregory, the sage femme, came into Castle Burrow to “prevent mistakes,” and tell the affair to the neighbours in her own way; that is, partly in whispers, partly aloud, and partly by nods and winks – such as old ladies frequently use when they wish to divulge more than they like to speak openly.
Sufficient could be gathered, however, to demonstrate that young Master Washington had not one white, or even gray spot on his entire body, and that some frizzled hair was already beginning to show itself on his little pate; but that no nurse could be found who would give him a drop of nourishment, even were he famishing – all the women verily believing that, as Mrs. Washington was herself an unexceptionable wife, it must be a son of the d – l by a dream, and nothing else than an imp. However, Mr. Hoskinson, the clergyman, soon contradicted this report by assuring the Protestants that the day for that sort of miracle had been for some centuries over, and that the infant was as fine, healthy, natural, and sprightly a little negro as ever came from the coast of Guinea.
Never was there such a buzz and hubbub in any neighbourhood as now took place in and about the town of Castle Durrow. Every body began to compute periods and form conjectures; and though it was universally known that red wine,