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I revelled in the gallops in the park with my uncle (whom I simply adored), my sister, and our cousins, for we one and all loved horses and rode well, and to some extent justified an answer made to me by a farmer’s wife, when I asked her one day for the loan of her horse for a ride.

“Certainly, Miss Mary,” she said, “with great pleasure. The farmer will always lend you or your sister his best horse, for he well knows what capital horse-ladies you are.”

I would fain make my readers acquainted with some of the characteristics of a beloved member of our family, who exercised a wonderful influence on all who surrounded him. Yet when I say that my uncle Poyntz was of a genial humour, a man of the world, a citizen of the world popular among all classes, all ages and both sexes, ever welcome abroad and adored at home, I am but too well aware that I fail in conveying any idea of his especial individuality.

POLITICS

Possessed with deep feeling and deep thought, there was a constant ripple on the surface. What in those days was called “persiflage,” and bears but a faint resemblance to the modern “chaff,” was in him a science, and no way like the constrained attempt at wit, from which every point is excluded, that but too often makes the “fun” of the practised joker. How often he put the respect and reticence of his servants to the test. I have seen them compelled to busy themselves with the plate on the sideboard, turning their backs on the dinner-table, while their shoulders shook with uncontrollable laughter. For us young ones there was usually a challenge for some playful encounter, and we were obliged to keep our wits sharpened in order to meet the attack and reply to the sally. He was a Liberal in politics, as were all the men of our family on both sides. The term Liberal was then accepted in its literal sense, and did not mean blind devotion to a revolutionary ideal. My father’s views, as far as I can remember them, were inclined to be ultra, but I am grateful to record that in so burning a question as that of Catholic Emancipation, both my uncles and my father strongly advocated the redress of grievances which had long been a blot on our nation. For myself, I scarcely troubled my little head about politics, and when election time came round, I always voted in my heart for the man who was my friend, and up to a very late period in my existence, “men and not measures,” was my shibboleth. But, like many others, in my late years “J’ai changé tout cela,” and the man I love best in the world, whomsoever that might be, would carry my worst wishes with him to the poll, if he assisted the Gladstonians in undermining the constitution of England and imperilling the safety of the throne; for I can never forget that in the times of the Civil Wars my great ancestor, Lord Cork, with his four sons fought at the battle of Bandon Bridge, on the side of the Cavaliers, and that one of the gallant brothers sealed his loyalty with his blood and left his life upon the field.