The Kellys and the OKellys | Page 9

necessary to accompany his more elevated rank. His son succeeded,
and showed in his character much more of the new-fangled viscount
than of the ancient O'Kelly. His whole long life was passed in hovering
about the English Court. From the time of his father's death, he never
once put his foot in Ireland. He had been appointed, at different times

from his youth upwards, Page, Gentleman in Waiting, Usher of the
Black Rod, Deputy Groom of the Stole, Chief Equerry to the Princess
Royal, (which appointment only lasted till the princess was five years
old), Lord Gold Stick, Keeper of the Royal Robes; till, at last, he had
culminated for ten halcyon years in a Lord of the Bedchamber. In the
latter portion of his life he had grown too old for this, and it was
reported at Ballindine, Dunmore, and Kelly's Court with how much
truth I don't know that, since her Majesty's accession, he had been
joined with the spinster sister of a Scotch Marquis, and an antiquated
English Countess, in the custody of the laces belonging to the Queen
Dowager.
This nobleman, publicly useful as his life had no doubt been, had done
little for his own tenants, or his own property. On his father's death, he
had succeeded to about three thousand a-year, and he left about one;
and he would have spent or mortgaged this, had he not, on his marriage,
put it beyond his own power to do so. It was not only by thriftless
extravagance that he thus destroyed a property which, with care, and
without extortion, would have doubled its value in the thirty-five years
during which it was in his hands; but he had been afraid to come to
Ireland, and had been duped by his agent. When he came to the title,
Simeon Lynch had been recommended to him as a fit person to manage
his property, and look after his interests; and Simeon had managed it
well in that manner most conducive to the prosperity of the person he
loved best in the world; and that was himself. When large tracts of land
fell out of lease, Sim had represented that tenants could not be found
that the land was not worth cultivating that the country was in a state
which prevented the possibility of letting; and, ultimately put himself
into possession, with a lease for ever, at a rent varying from half a
crown to five shillings an acre.
The courtier lord had one son, of whom he made a soldier, but who
never rose to a higher rank than that of Captain. About a dozen years
before the date of my story, the Honourable Captain O'Kelly, after
numerous quarrels with the Right Honourable Lord of the Bedchamber,
had, at last, come to some family settlement with him; and, having
obtained the power of managing the property himself, came over to live
at his paternal residence of Kelly's Court.
A very sorry kind of Court he found it neglected, dirty, and out of

repair. One of the first retainers whom he met was Jack Kelly, the
family fool. Jack was not such a fool as those who, of yore, were
valued appendages to noble English establishments. He resembled
them in nothing but his occasional wit. He was a dirty, barefooted,
unshorn, ragged ruffian, who ate potatoes in the kitchen of the Court,
and had never done a day's work in his life. Such as he was, however,
he was presented to Captain O'Kelly, as 'his honour the masther's fool.'
'So, you're my fool, Jack, are ye?' said the Captain.
'Faix, I war the lord's fool ance; but I'll no be anybody's fool but Sim
Lynch's, now. I and the lord are both Sim's fools now. Not but I'm the
first of the two, for I'd never be fool enough to give away all my land,
av' my father'd been wise enough to lave me any.'
Captain O'Kelly soon found out the manner in which the agent had
managed his father's affairs. Simeon Lynch was dismissed, and
proceedings at common law were taken against him, to break such of
the leases as were thought, by clever attorneys, to have the ghost of a
flaw in them. Money was borrowed from a Dublin house, for the
purpose of carrying on the suit, paying off debts, and making Kelly's
Court habitable; and the estate was put into their hands. Simeon Lynch
built himself a large staring house at Dunmore, defended his leases, set
up for a country gentleman on his own account, and sent his only son,
Barry, to Eton merely because young O'Kelly was also there, and he
was determined to show, that he was as rich and ambitious as the lord's
family, whom he had done so much to ruin.
Kelly's