Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3). Jonah Barrington
mortuum. Notwithstanding the drugs and the doctors, indeed, my father held out nearly ten days; but finally, as a matter of course, departed this world. I was deeply and sincerely grieved. I loved him affectionately, and never after could reconcile myself to either of his medical attendants. I had overheard their last consultation, and from that time to this, am of opinion, that one doctor is as good as, if not better than, five hundred. I shall never forget the dialogue. After discussing the weather and prevalence of diseases in the county, they began to consult. – “What do you say to the pulveres Jacobi?” said Dr. Mulhall (the family physician).
“We are three days too late,” smirked Doctor Fletcher.
“What think you then of cataplasmus, or the flies? – Eh! Doctor, eh! the flies?” said Mulhall.
“The flies won’t rise in time,” replied Doctor Fletcher: – “too late again!”
“I fear so,” said Mulhall.
“’Tis a pity, Doctor Mulhall, you did not suggest blistering breast and spine sooner: you know it was not my business, as I was only called in: – I could not duly suggest.”
“Why,” replied Doctor Mulhall, “I thought of it certainly, but I was unwilling to alarm the family by so definitive an application, unless in extremis.”
“We’re in extremis now,” said Doctor Fletcher – “he! he!”
“Very true – very true,” rejoined Doctor Mulhall; “but Nature is too strong for art; she takes her way in spite of us!”
“Unless, like a wife, she’s kept down at first,” said Fletcher – “he! he! he!”
“Perhaps I was rather too discreet and delicate, doctor; but if the colonel can still get down the pulveres Jacobi– ” said Mulhall.
“He can’t!” said Fletcher.
“Then we can do no more for the patient,” replied Mulhall.
“Nothing more,” said Fletcher; “so you had better break your ‘give-over’ to the family as tenderly as possible. That’s your business, you know: there is no use in my staying.” And so, as the sun rose, Doctor Fletcher jumped into his little cabriolet, and I heard him say in parting, “This is no jest, I fear, to his family.”
The next day I lost my father; and never did grief show itself more strong, or general, than on that mournful occasion. There was not a dry eye amongst his tenantry. My mother was distracted: for more than thirty years that they had been united, a single difference of opinion was never expressed between them. His sons loved him as a brother; and the attachment was mutual. His person was prepossessing – his manners those of a man of rank – his feelings such as became a man of honour. He had the mien of a gentleman, and the heart of a philanthropist; but he was careless of his concerns, and had too rustic an education. He left large landed estates, with large incumbrances to overwhelm them; and thirteen children survived to lament his departure.
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