Volume 2 — ECCENTRICITIES OF THE LATE MORRIS QUILL.

Few indeed are there in the army who have not heard of Morris Quill; and fewer still are they who have known a better man, or a merrier companion. He was a medical officer of the 31st regiment—an Irishman, with one of the softest, soundest, and most gentlemanly brogues that ever eulogised a bottle of genuine port, or asked a favour from a wealthy widow’s lip. He was a fine portly, good-humoured looking, summer-faced son of Erin, with that sort of fun about him which, if it did not injure himself, carried no sting to the bosom of any body else, except when his wit was directed to the operation of crushing some impudent coxcomb; and then it left its penal effects with him who deserved them. He is now no more, poor fellow! He died at Cork a short time ago, and his last march was attended by all the military (both half and full pay) in the city and its vicinity. His memory still lives; and so long as there shall be a gallant Peninsular hero to sit at a mess-table, the eccentricities and whims of Morris Quill can never be forgotten. The few which I recollect will be recognized as genuine by all those officers who served in the Duke of Wellington’s army. I knew him: I have known his friends: I have seen and heard of most of his drolleries; and from the many I select the few which follow.

For the purpose of creating hilarity, Morris would often affect the greatest simplicity of Irish manners when strangers were at the mess-table. He would on those occasions tell such anecdotes of himself, as were calculated to make him appear but little removed from barbarism; and this always afforded the highest degree of enjoyment to those who were by, most of whom knew that he was any thing but a barbarian. I was once present when he played off this whim in a most laughable way. There were several very prim and “monstrous” important gentlemen dining at the mess—perfect strangers to any thing like a joke, and equally so to Quill.

As soon as the bottle was fairly adrift, Morris seized an opportunity of gravely addressing the President. “Colonel,” said he, “I received a letther to-day from my ould mother in Kerry. Just read the direction on it. I’m sure ’tis plain enough, and yet it has been two months coming.” The letter was handed about the table, and the officers read aloud the address to the perfect astonishment of the visitors.

“To Misther Docthor Morris Quill, Esquire. Along with Lord Wellington’s fighting army in France, or Spain, or Portingale, or maybe elsewhere, and the Western Indys. From his loving mother.”

The gravity with which he managed this piece of humour, excited the mirth of all his companions, at the expense of the strangers, who looked very contemptuously on Morris, when they saw this specimen of the family education. However, before they left the table, all was explained, and Quill reinstated in their good opinion.

Morris had served in a regiment before he joined the 31st; and one of his old brother-officers having met him in Dublin, shortly after the exchange, asked him why he did not stay with his old friends?—“Oh, I’ll tell you then,” replied Morris. “You see I have a brother in the 32d, and I wanted to be near him in the wars, so I changed into the 31st, which you know is as close as possible to his regiment.” At this time they happened to be two thousand miles asunder.

With all the apparent simplicity which Quill exhibited, he was as good a judge of politeness, and knew as well the difference between gentlemanlike familiarity and impertinent freedom, as any man in the army; which the following anecdote will in a great measure prove. He exchanged from the 31st, after having been a long time in the regiment, for no other purpose but to be attached to one about to go on actual service, in order that he might have a better chance of promotion. On joining, he had in his pocket letters from all those officers of his old corps who had happened to be acquainted with those of the one into which he exchanged; but he did not take the trouble to present a single one, lest they would suppose, as he said himself, that he wanted them to give him a dinner. In a few days after his joining, a very supercilious officer of the regiment, no less a personage than one of the majors, met him in the mess-room, tête-à-tête, and after a little conversation, put a very impertinent question to Morris. “Pray, Sir,” said he, “were not you a considerable time in the 31st?”

“Oh, yes, I was, ’faith.”

“It is a very good corps indeed—very good corps. I wonder you did not remain in it! Pray, what made you leave it, Sir?”

Morris hesitated a little, and then replied: “Why, ’faith, I don’t like to mention exactly the reason, Major.”

“God bless me! what was it?”

“Why, you see, Major, I know you are a gentleman every bit of you; and if you will solemnly pledge me your honour that you will never mention it to any body, I’ll tell you the whole affair.”

“’Pon my honour, I won’t. I pledge you my honour, I will not mention it.”

“’Pon your honour,” said Morris emphatically.

“’Pon my honour!” echoed the Major.

“Well, that’s enough,” observed Morris; “I’ll tell you all about it. But shut the door, Major.”—The Major obeyed and hurried back to his chair.—“Well, then, you see, when I was in the 31st, I owed a little money here and there; and I was bothered with duns—Oh! the 31st was a fine regiment; it was there we had plenty of credit wherever we went: more is the pity for me; because I just—one day that I was short of a little money”—(whispering)

“Well, Sir!” interrupted the Major.

“I—a—just—a—put a few of the mess-table spoons and silver forks into my pocket;—that’s all.”

“Indeed!” observed the Major, drawing back his chair.

“Yes, indeed,” continued Morris; “and a fellow there, dressed up in livery (they call him the mess-waiter), saw me do it, and stopped me before the officers;—so I was obliged to leave the regiment; for the colonel was a civil fellow, and let me off without a court-martial.”

“Indeed!—ho—hum——Good morning, Sir,” politely replied the Major, and left the room.

Of course a thing of this kind was not suffered to lie hidden under a bushel half an hour by the Major. He proceeded instantly to the Colonel, and gravely laid open to him the alarming discovery. The Colonel lost not a moment in calling a meeting of the mess. The mess assembled (all excepting Morris, to whom the meeting was not made known, for obvious reasons), and the Major, in an energetic speech, informed the mess that he had heard the fact from Mr. Quill’s own lips, with that gentleman’s solemn injunction upon the Major to be secret. All were equally astonished and alarmed; each man put his hand instinctively to his fob; and a little attorney-faced captain despatched his servant to see if his trunks were all safe. The mad dog had got amongst them, and there was but one opinion about his expulsion.

Morris was sent for forthwith:—the orderly-serjeant was despatched to tell him that the Colonel and the members of the mess were assembled, and that he was to attend immediately.

The delinquent appeared without the least hesitation, and looking as pleasantly as ever. On being informed by the Colonel of the cause of the meeting, he paused, cast his eyes archly at the Major, and exclaimed, “Ah! Major, Major! so you have told on me, though you pledged your honour!” (Not a word from the Major.) “Now, Colonel, the fact of the matter is this: I was asked a question by that gentleman, which, however he might have meant it, I could not receive but as a joke (a little too free, I must say), and so I—just answered him as the joke deserved. The Major, in a way I did not much relish, asked me, ‘What was the reason I quitted the 31st?’ and I gave him an answer. It was a question of an odd meaning, and so I gave him an odd reply.” (A stare and a smile from all except the Major.) “Now,” continued Morris, pulling out a bundle of letters, “there’s a letter for you, Colonel; and one for you, Captain Smith; and for you, Captain Jones; and for you, Lieutenant Edwards:”—so on, until he delivered the bundle of introductions which he brought from his last regiment. The letters were read aloud, and better fun was never enjoyed in the mess-room, nor relished with greater zest before or since; even the Major “Join’d in the laugh that almost made him sick;” and Morris became the favourite of every officer in the regiment, always excepting the honourable Major himself.

At one period of the Peninsular war, the army was several months in arrear of pay. Money was not to be got anywhere by the advanced troops, except in the class of Generals and higher officers. Morris Quill was, of course, one of those whose purses were empty—indeed there was not a dollar to be caught in the regiment from right to left.

A general officer was passing with his staff (General Crawford, I believe) through the village in which Morris was quartered. As soon as he saw the General, he turned to a brother officer, and said, “By J——! I’ve a great mind to ask the General for a few dollars.”

“That you may do,” replied the officer; “but I’m sure you will not get them.”

“Will you bet me £5 I don’t?” returned Morris.

“I will bet you £5 you do not borrow £5 or 20 dollars from him.”

“Done. I’ll bet you a bill on the paymaster.”

“Done.”

“Done—and I’ll dine with him too,” said Morris, as he started off on his poney. He trotted up to the General: taking off his hat in the most “official” manner,—“General,” said he, “I beg your pardon—I have to mention to you that my sick are without any comforts,4—they will be in a bad way if I cannot buy something for them; and I have no money at all.”

“Well, Mr. Quill, that is a very unfortunate thing. How much money will be enough for you?”

“Oh! about 20 dollars, Sir; and if you will lend that sum to me, I will give you an order on Cox and Greenwood for the money; which you can send over, and it will be just the same thing to you.”

“Very well, Mr. Quill. Come to my quarters, and you shall have the money.”

Morris jogged off with the General about two miles to his quarters; and during the time they were going, the General found him a very pleasant and humorous fellow. Morris, as he was receiving the money, mentioned something about the scarcity of provisions, and concluded by saying, “Faith, General, I don’t know when I had a dinner, or even saw the ghost of one: there is a very savoury smell here, I can perceive; but that is a General thing, I suppose, in this quarter.”

The General without hesitation asked Morris to stay to dinner; and highly enjoyed his society during the evening.

It was eleven o’clock before he returned; when producing the cash, he convinced his friend and the other officers of his success; so they finished the night over a cigar and a bottle of ration grog.

Quill, during the whole time he served in the Peninsula, had a servant who was as whimsical and as humorous as himself. This servant, he used to say, was “the best caterer for a gentleman’s table in hard times, that ever came from Kerry.” And so he was; for Morris Quill had always a fowl or a sucking pig for dinner, when the rest of the officers (except those who dined with Morris) were obliged to be contented with a biscuit and a bit of hard beef. Indeed, so excellent a purveyor and cook was Dennis, that his master made it a practice to ask his friends to dine with him, without (of himself) knowing where the eatables were to come from. “Dennis,” he would say, “I am going to ask a couple of gentlemen to dine with me to-day—indeed I have asked them already. What have you got?”

“Oh musha! Docthor Quill, I don’t know that I have any thing, barrin’ a shouldther o’ vale and a hen or two.”

(A shoulder of veal! and a brace of fowls! when they were starving!—no bad things.)—Or, perhaps, as it might happen, Dennis would say, “Faith! Masther, I havn’t a toothful in the place, barrin’ the rashions.”

“Well, Dennis, get what you can. Try, can you buy any thing about the country?”

(Buy, indeed! and not a sixpence in the whole division!)

Morris and his friends would come to dinner at the usual hour, perfectly confident that Dennis had done his duty; and, perhaps, a good pair of fowls, or a piece of pickled pork, or a sucking pig, would welcome their longing appetites.

“Where did you buy these things, Dennis?” Quill would ask.

“O! plase your honour, up there above—over the hill—down there, at a farm-house yondther.”

“You’re sure you bought them, Dennis?”

“O yes; I ped for ’em, Sir—that is, I offered the money to the farmer; but he said, ‘Never mind, Dennis,’ says he, ‘it will do another time.’ So I mane to pay the next time I go.”

“Very well, very well, Dennis; so as you paid for the provision, it’s all well; but take care the Provost doesn’t give you your change one of these days.”

“Oh, never mind that, Sir; the Portuguese hereabouts all knows me very well, and wouldn’t mind if I never ped them a vintin.”

And they had a right to know Dennis,—at least their live stock had; for there was scarcely a fowl, rabbit, pig, sheep, or calf in the country, that he had not paid his respects to. Dennis used to say, “We are here starvin’ and fightin’ for the Portuguese; so the laste they may do, is to give us our dinner, at any rate.”

The last anecdote of this singular character, which I recollect, is as follows:—

A very hot engagement had taken place, in which the 31st regiment had been hard at work. Quill had his instruments, &c. under a hedge in a valley; at a little distance from the hill which his regiment was endeavouring to take from the French. He stayed pretty near the corps, (for Morris was no flincher,) and one of his brother officers being wounded in the leg, he ran over to him to render what surgical assistance he could. It was necessary to have something from the medicine-chest, which was behind the hedge in the valley, and Morris started off like a hare, to fetch it. At this moment the regiment was suffering from grape-shot, and the Brigadier-General, who was coming at a gallop along a narrow lane, saw Quill running, inside a hedge, as fast as he could, away from the regiment, in the uniform of which he was; and, thinking it was some cowardly officer who feared the grape, the General cried out to him, “Where are you going, Sir?” To which Morris only replied, still running under the hedge, “By J——s! I won’t stay any longer there; it’s too hot.” The General again cried out to him, and ordered his aid-de-camp to follow, and march him back a prisoner; but Morris outran the aid-de-camp’s horse, and arrived before him at the hedge where his instruments were. When the latter saw who it was, he well nigh fell off his horse with laughing, as he galloped back to tell the General his mistake. Morris laughed heartily, too; and, indeed, he had the laugh all on his own side, as he returned with the medicaments for which he had gone, to assist his wounded brother officer, and with which he ran as fast into the field as he had run out of it.