DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70302#0467
ADVENTURES OF MRS. CHRISTIAN DAVIES.
421
a maltster and brewer, employed a considerable number
of servants in that business, and likewise held a farm at
Leixlip, which he left to the management of his wife.
They spared no expence in the education of our heroine
who though she learned to read, and became a good
needle-woman, yet conceived a violent dislike for sedentary
employments, for which reason she was always at the farm
to assist her mother. This preference for the country
proceeded rather from inclination than duty, as she
could there indulge her love of boyish amusements, and
the pleasure she took in manly occupations; for she was
never more delighted than when following the plough, or
handling a rake, flail, or pitch-fork, in the use of which
she shewed as much strength and dexterity as any of the
servants. Another favourite exercise was to get astride
upon the horses and to ride them bare-backed about the
fields, leaping the hedges and ditches, by which she oc-
casionally met with some severe accidents. In a word,
while a girl, she manifested that masculine spirit which
enabled her afterwards to sustain so well the character
she assumed.
When James II. had abdicated the English throne and
applied for assistance to his Irish subjects, the father of
our heroine, though a protestant, embraced his cause
with such ardour, that with the sale of his standing crops
and the money he had before in his possession, he raised
a troop of horse in favour of the unfortunate monarch.
It was not more than a year afterwards that he received
a mortal wound at the battle of Aghrim, in which
General Ginkle obtained a complete victory over the
forces of King James, and all his effects were seized by the
government.
Our heroine had now attained the age of maturity, and
attracted the notice of her mother’s first cousin, named
Thomas Howell, fellow of Dublin College, who paid his
addresses
421
a maltster and brewer, employed a considerable number
of servants in that business, and likewise held a farm at
Leixlip, which he left to the management of his wife.
They spared no expence in the education of our heroine
who though she learned to read, and became a good
needle-woman, yet conceived a violent dislike for sedentary
employments, for which reason she was always at the farm
to assist her mother. This preference for the country
proceeded rather from inclination than duty, as she
could there indulge her love of boyish amusements, and
the pleasure she took in manly occupations; for she was
never more delighted than when following the plough, or
handling a rake, flail, or pitch-fork, in the use of which
she shewed as much strength and dexterity as any of the
servants. Another favourite exercise was to get astride
upon the horses and to ride them bare-backed about the
fields, leaping the hedges and ditches, by which she oc-
casionally met with some severe accidents. In a word,
while a girl, she manifested that masculine spirit which
enabled her afterwards to sustain so well the character
she assumed.
When James II. had abdicated the English throne and
applied for assistance to his Irish subjects, the father of
our heroine, though a protestant, embraced his cause
with such ardour, that with the sale of his standing crops
and the money he had before in his possession, he raised
a troop of horse in favour of the unfortunate monarch.
It was not more than a year afterwards that he received
a mortal wound at the battle of Aghrim, in which
General Ginkle obtained a complete victory over the
forces of King James, and all his effects were seized by the
government.
Our heroine had now attained the age of maturity, and
attracted the notice of her mother’s first cousin, named
Thomas Howell, fellow of Dublin College, who paid his
addresses