As had been the case with “The Real Charlotte,” so were we also in Paris when “Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.”—to give the book its full and cumbrous title—was published by Messrs. Longman in November, 1899.

It was probably better for us both that we should be where, beyond the voices, there was peace, but it meant that most of the fun of publishing a book was lost to us. The thrill, for example, of buying a chance paper, and lighting upon a review in it. One might buy all the papers in Paris without a moment of anxiety.

After a time, however, congested envelopes of “press cuttings,” mostly of a reassuring character, began to arrive. Press-cuttings, received en gros, are liable to induce feelings of indigestion, and with their economy of margin and general suggestion of the waste-paper basket, their tendency is to crush the romance out of reviews; but Martin and I found them good reading. And gradually, letters from unknown readers began to reach us. Pathetic letters, one from “an Irish Exile,” thanking us for “a Whiff of Irish air,” another from Australia, proudly claiming possession of “Five drops of Irish blood,” and offering them as an excuse for “troubling us with thanks.” Serious inquiries, beginning, in one instance, “Dear Sirs or Ladies, or Sir or Lady,”—as to whether we were men or women, or both. A friendly writer, in America, informed us that legend was already “crystalising all over us.” “There is a tradition in our neighbourhood that you are ladies—also that you live at Bally something—that you are Art Students in Paris—that you are Music Students in Germany ... but my writing is not to inquire into your identity—or how you collaborate ... a cumulative debt of gratitude fell due....” The writer then proceeded to congratulate us on “having accomplished the rare feat of being absolutely modern, yet bearing no date,” and ended by saying “I think the stories will be as good in ten years or fifty (which probably interests you less) as they are to-day.” A kind forecast, that still remains to be verified. The same writer, who was herself one of the trade, went on to say that she “knew that the Author is not insulted or aggrieved on hearing that perfect strangers are eagerly awaiting the next book, or re-reading the last with complete enjoyment,” and this chapter may be taken as a confirmation of the truth of what she said. One may often smile at the form in which, sometimes, the approval is conveyed, but I welcome this opportunity of thanking those wonderful people, who have taken the trouble to write to Martin and me, often from the ends of the earth, to tell us that our writing had given them pleasure; not more, I think, than their letters have given us, so we can cry quits over the transaction.

We have been told, and the story is well authenticated, of a young lady who invariably slept with two copies of the book (like my aunt and her “Sommeliers”), one on each side of her, so that on whichever side she faced on waking, she could find instant refreshment. An assurance of almost excessive appreciation came from America, informing us that we “had Shakspere huddled into a corner, screaming for mercy.” We were told of a lady (of the bluest literary blood) who had classified friends from acquaintances by finding out if they had read and appreciated “The Real Charlotte” or no, and who now was unable to conceive how she had ever existed without the assistance of certain quotations from “The R.M.” Perhaps one of the most pleasing of these tales was one of a man who said (to a faithful hearer) “First I read it at full speed, because I couldn’t stop, and then I read it very slowly, chewing every word; and then I read it a third time, dwelling on the bits I like best; and then, and not till then, thank Heaven! I was told it was written by two women!”

An old hunting man, a friend and contemporary of Surtees and DelmÉ Radcliffe, wrote to us saying that he was “The Evangelist of the Irish R.M. It is the only doctrine that I preach.... It is ten years since I dropped upon it by pure accident, and, like Keats, in his equally immortal sonnet—

I am so deeply grieved that you cannot hunt. I can sympathise. It is sixty years since I began hunting, and I know how you must miss it. Now you realise the truth of John Jorrocks. ‘For hunting is like the air we breathe, if we have it not, we die.’ But don’t do that. Ever yours, etc. etc.”

We have had many letters containing inquiries of a sort that taxed both memory and invention to find replies to them. Bewildering demands for explanations, philological, etymological, zoological, of such statements as “The Divil in the Wild Woods wouldn’t content him,” or Flurry Knox’s refusal to “be seen

dead at a pig fair” in certain articles of attire. Why a pig fair? Why dead? Why everything? Martin’s elucidation of the pig fair problem appeared in the Spectator, included in a letter from the inquirer, “G.,” and is as follows:

“I have never given a necktie to a male friend, or even enemy; but a necktie was once given to me. I showed it to a person whose opinion on such matters I revere. He said at once, ‘I would not be seen dead in it at a pig-fair.’ The matter of the tie ended there; to use the valuable expression of the wife of the male friend, (in connection with a toy that might possibly prove injurious to her young,) I ‘gradually threw it away.’ That was my first experience of the pig-fair trope, and I have never ceased to find comfort in it, nor ever questioned its completeness. I am aware that nothing, presumably, will matter to me when I am dead, yet, casting my mind forward, I do not wish the beholder of my remains, casting his eye backward, to be scandalised by my taste in ties, or other accompaniments, while I was alive. I do not myself greatly care about being alive at a pig-fair, neither is it an advantage, socially or otherwise, to be dead there. Yet this odium might be enhanced, could even be transcended, in the eye of the beholder, by the infamy of my necktie. To this point I have treated the beholder as a person able to appreciate the discredit, not only of my necktie, but also of being dead at a pig-fair. There remains, however, and in a highly intensive manner, the pig-fair itself. We trust and believe the pig-jobber is critical about pigs; but we do not expect from him fastidiousness in artistic and social affairs. He will not, we hope, realise the discredit of being dead at a pig-fair, but there can be neckties at which he will draw the line. Considering, therefore, the disapprobation of the pig-jobber, joined to that of the other beholders, and finding that fore-knowledge of the callousness of death could not allay my sense of these ignominies, I gradually threw away the necktie.”

I trust “G.” will permit me to quote also the following from his letter.

“As reference has been made to the ‘R.M.’ your readers will be amused to hear that a French sportsman who had asked the name of a good sporting novel, and had been recommended the work in question, said with some surprise, ‘But I did not think such things existed in Ireland.’ He imagined the title to be ‘Some Reminiscences of an Irish Harem.’

A leading place among the communications and appreciations that we received about our books was taken by what we were accustomed to call Medical Testimonials. The number of quinzies and cases of tonsilitis that Major Yeates has cured, violently, it is true, but effectually, the cases of prostration after influenza, in which we were assured he alone had power to rouse and cheer the sufferer, cannot possibly be enumerated. We have sometimes been flattered into the hope that we were beginning to rival the Ross “Fluit-player” of whom it was said, “A man in deep concumption From death he would revive.”

We had but one complaint, and that was from a cousin, who said it had reduced her to “Disabling laughter,” which, “remembering the awful warning, ‘laugh, and grow F——!’” she had tried her utmost to restrain.

The envelopes of press cuttings became more and more congested as the months went on, and the “R.M.” continued his course round the world; and, thanks to his being, on the whole, an inoffensive person, he was received with more kindness than we had ever dared to hope for. There were, as far as I can remember, but few rose leaves with crumples in them, and even they had their compensations, as, I think, the following sample crumple will sufficiently indicate. I am far from wishing to hold this pronouncement up to derision. There was a great deal more of it than appears here, which, unfortunately, I have not space to quote. We found many of its strictures instructive and bracing, and the suffering that pulses in the final paragraph bears the traces of a genuine emotion.

“The stories were originally published in a magazine, and would be less monotonous and painful, no doubt, if read separately, and in small doses.... The picture they give of Irish life is ... so depressingly squalid and hopeless.... The food is appallingly bad, and the cooking and service, if possible, worse. No one in the book, high or low, does a stroke of work, unless shady horse-selling and keeping dirty public houses can be said to be doing work.... On the whole, the horses and hounds are far more important than the human beings, and the stables and kennels are only a degree less dilapidated and disgusting than the houses. Not a trace of romance, seriousness, or tenderness, disturbs the uniform tone of the book.

“Such is the picture of our country, given, I believe, by two Irish ladies. One, at least, is Irish—Miss Martin, a niece of the Honourable Mrs. P. A more unfeminine book I have never perused, or one more devoid of any sentiment of refinement, for even men who write horsey novels preserve some tinge of romance in their feelings towards women which these ladies are devoid of. A complete hardness pervades their treatment of the female as of the male characters.”

It is seventeen years since we first perused this melancholy indictment. Is it too late to do one act of justice and to restore to the reviewer one illusion? Martin Ross cannot claim the relationship assigned to her; the Honourable Mrs. P. leaves the court without a stain on her character.

Among the best and most faithful of the friends of the R.M., we make bold to count the Army. After the South African War, we were shown a letter in which a Staff-officer had said that he “had worn out three copies of the ‘Irish R.M.’ during the War, but it had preserved for him his reason, which would otherwise have been lost.” Another wrote to tell us of the copy of the book that had been found in General de Wet’s tent, on one of the many occasions when that stout campaigner had got up a little earlier than had been expected. Yet a third officer, no less than a Director of Military Intelligence, said that a statue should be erected in honour of the “R.M.” “For services rendered during the War.” And, as Mr. Belloc has sung, “Surely the Tartar should know!”

Much later came a letter from Northern Nigeria, telling us that “the book was ripping,” apologising for “frightful cheek” in writing, ending with the statement that “even if we were annoyed,” the writer was, “at any rate, a long way off!”

In very truth we were not annoyed. We have had letters that filled us with an almost shamed thankfulness that we should have been able, with such play-boys as Flurry Knox, and “Slipper,” and the rest, to give what seemed to be a real lift to people who needed it; and, since 1914, it is not easy to express what happiness it has brought us both to hear, as we have often heard, that the various volumes of the R.M.’s adventures had done their share in bringing moments of laughter, and, perhaps, of oblivion for a while to their surroundings, to the fighters in France and in all those other cruel places, where endurance and suffering go hand in hand, and the lads lay down their lives with a laugh.

Nothing, I believe, ever gave Martin more pleasure than that passages from the “Irish R.M.” should have been included among the Broad Sheets that the Times sent out to the soldiers. It was in the last summer of her life, little as we thought it, that this honour was paid to our stories, and had she been told how brief her time was to be, and been asked to choose the boon that she would like best, I believe that to be numbered among that elect company of consolers was what she would most gladly have chosen.

A little book was sent to me, not long ago, which was published in the spring of this year, 1917. It gives an account, worthy in its courage and simplicity of the brilliant and gallant young life that it commemorates. In it is told how Gilbert Talbot, of the Rifle Brigade, “began the plan of reading aloud in the men’s rest times, and we heard from many sources what the fun was, and the shouts of laughter, from his reading aloud of ‘Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.’ ‘Philippa’s first Foxhunt’ was a special success.” And in his last entry in his diary, he himself tells of having “read one of the old R.M. stories aloud,” and that it was “a roaring success.”

Yet one other story, and one that touches the fount of tears. It was written to me by one who knew and loved Martin; one whose husband had been killed in the war, and who wrote of her eldest son,

“I want to tell you that the R.M. helped me through what would have been D——’s twenty-first birthday yesterday. I know Violet would have been glad.”

I believe that she knows these things, and I am quite sure that she is glad.