till upright as a dart, though
his eyesight has failed him. It is to Sir George and to Sir David
Erskine that I am indebted for the greater portion of the details
concerning this boat-race of 1866, and of its preliminaries, for many
of these would not have come within the scope of my knowledge at nine
years of age.

Sir David Erskine, the other member of the crew still surviving,
ex-Sergeant-at-Arms, was a most familiar, respected, and greatly
esteemed personality to all those who have sat in the House of Commons
during the last forty years. I might perhaps have put it more strongly;
for he was invariably courteous, and such a great gentleman. Sir David
was born in 1838, consequently he is now eighty-two years old.

One of my brothers has still in his keeping a very large gold medal.
One side of it bears the effigy of "Napoleon III., Empereur des
Francais." The other side testifies that it is the "Premier Prix
d'Avirons de la Mediterrannee, 1866." The ugly hybrid word
"Championnat" for "Championship" had not then been acclimatised in
France.

Shortly after the boat-race, being now nine years old, I went home to
England to go to school.

CHAPTER III

A new departure--A Dublin hotel in the "sixties"--The Irish mail
service--The wonderful old paddle mail-boats--The convivial waiters of
the Munster--The Viceregal Lodge-Indians and pirates--The imagination
of youth--A modest personal ambition--Death-warrants; imaginary and
real--The Fenian outbreak of 1866-7--The Abergele railway accident--A
Dublin Drawing-Room--Strictly private ceremonials--Some of the
amenities of the Chapel Royal--An unbidden spectator of the State
dinners--Irish wit--Judge Keogh--Father Healy--Happy Dublin knack of
nomenclature--An unexpected honour and its cause--Incidents of the
Fenian rising--Dr. Hatchell--A novel prescription--Visit of King
Edward--Gorgeous ceremonial but a chilly drive--An anecdote of Queen
Alexandra.

Upon returning from school for my first holidays, I learnt that my
father had been appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and that we were
in consequence to live now for the greater portion of the year in
Dublin.

We were all a little doubtful as to how we should like this new
departure. Dublin was, of course, fairly familiar to us from our stays
there, when we travelled to and from the north of Ireland. Some of the
minor customs of the "sixties" seem so remote now that it may be worth
while recalling them. In comm