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Tales and Novels — Volume 04

by Maria Edgeworth · English · Gutenberg #9439 · 965,361 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Tales and Novels — Volume 04

Author: Maria Edgeworth


        
Release date: December 1, 2005 [eBook #9439]
                Most recently updated: December 20, 2016

Language: English

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TALES AND NOVELS, VOL. IV

Containing

CASTLE RACKRENT; AN ESSAY ON IRISH BULLS; AN ESSAY ON THE NOBLE SCIENCE
OF SELF-JUSTIFICATION; ENNUI; AND THE DUN.

By Maria Edgeworth

In Ten Volumes. With Engravings On Steel.


1857.



    “A prudence undeceiving, undeceived,
    That nor too little nor too much believed;
    That scorn’d unjust suspicion’s coward fear,
    And without weakness knew to be sincere.”
                  _Lord Lyttelton’s Monody on his Wife_.



PREFACE


The prevailing taste of the public for anecdote has been censured and
ridiculed by critics who aspire to the character of superior wisdom;
but if we consider it in a proper point of view, this taste is an
incontestable proof of the good sense and profoundly philosophic temper
of the present times. Of the numbers who study, or at least who read
history, how few derive any advantage from their labours! The heroes of
history are so decked out by the fine fancy of the professed historian;
they talk in such measured prose, and act from such sublime or such
diabolical motives, that few have sufficient taste, wickedness, or
heroism, to sympathize in their fate. Besides, there is much uncertainty
even in the best authenticated ancient or modern histories; and that
love of truth, which in some minds is innate and immutable, necessarily
leads to a love of secret memoirs and private anecdotes. We cannot
judge either of the feelings or of the characters of men with perfect
accuracy, from their actions or their appearance in public; it is from
their careless conversations, their half-finished sentences, that we
may hope with the greatest probability of success to discover their real
characters. The life of a great or of a little man written by himself,
the familiar letters, the diary of any individual published by his
friends or by his enemies, after his decease, are esteemed important
literary curiosities. We are surely justified, in this eager desire, to
collect the most minute facts relative to the domestic lives, not only
of the great and good, but even of the worthless and insignificant,
since it is only by a comparison of their actual happiness or misery
in the privacy of domestic life that we can form a just estimate of the
real reward of virtue, or the real punishment of vice. That the great
are not as happy as they seem, that the external circumstances of
fortune and rank do not constitute felicity, is asserted by every
moralist: the historian can seldom, consistently with his dignity, pause
to illustrate this truth: it is therefore to the biographer we must have
recourse. After we have beheld splendid characters playing their parts
on the great theatre of the world, with all the advantages of stage
effect and decoration, we anxiously beg to be admitted behind the
scenes, that we may take a nearer view of the actors and actresses.

Some may perhaps imagine, that the value of biography depends upon the
judgment and taste of the biographer: but on the contrary it may be
maintained, that the merits of a biographer are inversely as the
extent of his intellectual powers and of his literary talents. A plain
unvarnished tale is preferable to the most highly ornamented narrative.
Where we see that a man has the power, we may naturally suspect that
he has the will to deceive us; and those who are used to literary
manufacture know how much is often sacrificed to the rounding of a
period, or the pointing of an antithesis.

That the ignorant may have their prejudices as well as the learned
cannot be disputed; but we see and despise vulgar errors: we never
bow to the authority of him who has no great name to sanction his
absurdities. The partiality which blinds a biographer to the defects of
his hero, in proportion as it is gross, ceases to be dangerous; but
if it be concealed by the appearance of candour, which men of great
abilities best know how to assume, it endangers our judgment sometimes,
and sometimes our morals. If her grace the Duchess of Newcastle, instead
of penning her lord’s elaborate eulogium, had undertaken to write the
life of Savage, we should not have been in any danger of mistaking an
idle, ungrateful libertine, for a man of genius and virtue. The talents
of a biographer are often fatal to his reader. For these reasons the
public often judiciously countenance those who, without sagacity
to discriminate character, without elegance of style to relieve the
tediousness of narrative, without enlargement of mind to draw any
conclusions from the facts they relate, simply pour forth anecdotes,
and retail conversations, with all the minute prolixity of a gossip in a
country town.

The author of the following Memoirs has upon these grounds fair claims
to the public favour and attention; he was an illiterate old steward,
whose partiality to _the family_, in which he was bred and born, must
be obvious to the reader. He tells the history of the Rackrent family in
his vernacular idiom, and in the full confidence that Sir Patrick,
Sir Murtagh, Sir Kit, and Sir Condy Rackrent’s affairs will be as
interesting to all the world as they were to himself. Those who were
acquainted with the manners of a certain class of the gentry of Ireland
some years ago, will want no evidence of the truth of honest Thady’s
narrative: to those who are totally unacquainted with Ireland, the
following Memoirs will perhaps be scarcely intelligible, or probably
they may appear perfectly incredible. For the information of the
_ignorant_ English reader, a few notes have been subjoined by the
editor, and he had it once in contemplation to translate the language of
Thady into plain English; but Thady’s idiom is incapable of translation,
and, besides, the authenticity of his story would have been more exposed
to doubt if it were not told in his own characteristic manner. Several
years ago he related to the editor the history of the Rackrent family,
and it was with some difficulty that he was persuaded to have it
committed to writing; however, his feelings for “_the honour of the
family_,” as he expressed himself, prevailed over his habitual laziness,
and he at length completed the narrative which is now aid before the
public.

The editor hopes his readers will observe that these are “tales of other
times:” that the manners depicted in the following pages are not those
of the present age: the race of the Rackrents has long since been
extinct in Ireland; and the drunken Sir Patrick, the litigious
Sir Murtagh, the fighting Sir Kit, and the slovenly Sir Condy, are
characters which could no more be met with at present in Ireland, than
Squire Western or Parson Trulliber in England. There is a time
when individuals can bear to be rallied for their past follies
and absurdities, after they have acquired new habits and a new
consciousness. Nations, as well as individuals, gradually lose
attachment to their identity, and the present generation is amused,
rather than offended, by the ridicule that is thrown upon its ancestors.

Probably we shall soon have it in our power, in a hundred instances, to
verify the truth of these observations.

When Ireland loses her identity by an union with Great Britain, she will
look back, with a smile of good-humoured complacency, on the Sir Kits
and Sir Condys of her former existence.



CONTENTS:

CASTLE RACKRENT

GLOSSARY

FOOTNOTES

ESSAY ON IRISH BULLS

         Introduction
CHAP. I. Originality of Irish Bulls examined
     II. Irish Newspapers
    III. The Criminal Law of Bulls and Blunders
     IV. Little Dominick
      V. The Bliss of Ignorance
     VI. “Thoughts that breathe, and Words that burn”
     VII. Practical Bulls
   VIII. The Dublin Shoeblack
     IX. The Hibernian Mendicant
      X. Irish Wit and Eloquence
     XI. The Brogue
    XII. Bath Coach Conversation
   XIII. Bath Coach Conversation
    XIV. The Irish Incognito
         Conclusion
         Appendix
         Footnotes

AN ESSAY ON THE NOBLE SCIENCE OF SELF-JUSTIFICATION

ENNUI

THE DUN






CASTLE RACKRENT


_Monday Morning_.[A]

Having, out of friendship for the family, upon whose estate, praised be
Heaven! I and mine have lived rent-free, time out of mind, voluntarily
undertaken to publish the MEMOIRS of the RACKRENT FAMILY, I think it my
duty to say a few words, in the first place, concerning myself. My real
name is Thady Quirk, though in the family I have always been known by
no other than “_honest Thady_”--afterward, in the time of Sir Murtagh,
deceased, I remember to hear them calling me “_old Thady_,” and now I’m
come to “poor Thady;” for I wear a long great coat[1] winter and summer,
which is very handy, as I never put my arms into the sleeves; they
are as good as new, though come Holantide next I’ve had it these seven
years; it holds on by a single button round my neck, cloak fashion.
To look at me, you would hardly think “poor Thady” was the father of
attorney Quirk; he is a high gentleman, and never minds what poor Thady
says, and having better than fifteen hundred a year, landed estate,
looks down upon honest Thady; but I wash my hands of his doings, and as
I have lived so will I die, true and loyal to the family. The family
of the Rackrents is, I am proud to say, one of the most ancient in the
kingdom. Every body knows this is not the old family name, which was
O’Shaughlin, related to the kings of Ireland--but that was before my
time. My grandfather was driver to the great Sir Patrick O’Shaughlin,
and I heard him, when I was a boy, telling how the Castle Rackrent
estate came to Sir Patrick; Sir Tallyhoo Rackrent was cousin-german to
him, and had a fine estate of his own, only never a gate upon it, it
being his maxim that a car was the best gate. Poor gentleman! he lost a
fine hunter and his life, at last, by it, all in one day’s hunt. But I
ought to bless that day, for the estate came straight into _the_ family,
upon one condition, which Sir Patrick O’Shaughlin at the time took sadly
to heart, they say, but thought better of it afterwards, seeing how
large a stake depended upon it, that he should, by act of parliament,
take and bear the surname and arms of Rackrent.

Now it was that the world was to see what was _in_ Sir Patrick. On
coming into the estate, he gave the finest entertainment ever was heard
of in the country; not a man could stand after supper but Sir Patrick
himself, who could sit out the best man in Ireland, let alone the three
kingdoms itself.[B] He had his house, from one year’s end to another,
as full of company as ever it could hold, and fuller; for rather than
be left out of the parties at Castle Rackrent, many gentlemen, and those
men of the first consequence and landed estates in the country, such as
the O’Neils of Ballynagrotty, and the Moueygawls of Mount Juliet’s Town,
and O’Shannons of New Town Tullyhog, made it their choice, often and
often, when there was no room to be had for love nor money, in long
winter nights, to sleep in the chicken-house, which Sir Patrick had
fitted up for the purpose of accommodating his friends and the public
in general, who honoured him with their company unexpectedly at Castle
Rackrent; and this went on, I can’t tell you how long--the whole country
rang with his praises!--Long life to him! I’m sure I love to look upon
his picture, now opposite to me; though I never saw him, he must have
been a portly gentleman--his neck something short, and remarkable for
the largest pimple on his nose, which, by his particular desire, is
still extant in his picture, said to be a striking likeness, though
taken when young. He is said also to be the inventor of raspberry
whiskey, which is very likely, as nobody has ever appeared to dispute
it with him, and as there still exists a broken punch-bowl at Castle
Rackrent, in the garret, with an inscription to that effect--a great
curiosity. A few days before his death he was very merry; it being his
honour’s birth-day, he called my grandfather in, God bless him! to drink
the company’s health, and filled a bumper himself, but could not carry
it to his head, on account of the great shake in his hand; on this he
cast his joke, saying, “What would my poor father say to me if he was
to pop out of the grave, and see me now? I remember when I was a little
boy, the first bumper of claret he gave me after dinner, how he praised
me for carrying it so steady to my mouth. Here’s my thanks to him--a
bumper toast.” Then he fell to singing the favourite song he learned
from his father--for the last time, poor gentleman--he sung it that
night as loud and as hearty as ever with a chorus:

  “He that goes to bed, and goes to bed sober,
  Falls as the leaves do, falls as the leaves do, and dies in October;
  But he that goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow,
  Lives as he ought to do, lives as he ought to do, and dies an honest
  fellow.”

Sir Patrick died that night: just as the company rose to drink his
health with three cheers, he fell down in a sort of fit, and was carried
off; they sat it out, and were surprised, on inquiry, in the morning, to
find that it was all over with poor Sir Patrick. Never did any gentleman
live and die more beloved in the country by rich and poor. His funeral
was such a one as was never known before or since in the county! All
the gentlemen in the three counties were at it; far and near, how they
flocked! my great grandfather said, that to see all the women even in
their red cloaks, you would have taken them for the army drawn out. Then
such a fine whillaluh![C] you might have heard it to the farthest end of
the county, and happy the man who could get but a sight of the hearse!
But who’d have thought it? just as all was going on right, through his
own town they were passing, when the body was seized for debt--a rescue
was apprehended from the mob; but the heir who attended the funeral was
against that, for fear of consequences, seeing that those villains who
came to serve acted under the disguise of the law: so, to be sure, the
law must take its course, and little gain had the creditors for their
pains. First and foremost, they had the curses of the country: and Sir
Murtagh Rackrent, the new heir, in the next place, on account of this
affront to the body, refused to pay a shilling of the debts, in which
he was countenanced by all the best gentlemen of property, and others
of his acquaintance; Sir Murtagh alleging in all companies, that he all
along meant to pay his father’s debts of honour, but the moment the
law was taken of him, there was an end of honour to be sure. It was
whispered (but none but the enemies of the family believe it), that
this was all a sham seizure to get quit of the debts, which he had bound
himself to pay in honour.

It’s a long time ago, there’s no saying how it was, but this for
certain, the new man did not take at all after the old gentleman; the
cellars were never filled after his death, and no open house, or any
thing as it used to be; the tenants even were sent away without their
whiskey.[D] I was ashamed myself, and knew not what to say for the
honour of the family; but I made the best of a bad case, and laid it all
at my lady’s door, for I did not like her any how, nor any body else;
she was of the family of the Skinflints, and a widow; it was a strange
match for Sir Murtagh; the people in the country thought he demeaned
himself greatly,[E] but I said nothing: I knew how it was; Sir Murtagh
was a great lawyer, and looked to the great Skinflint estate; there,
however, he overshot himself; for though one of the co-heiresses, he was
never the better for her, for she outlived him many’s the long day--he
could not see that to be sure when he married her. I must say for her,
she made him the best of wives, being a very notable, stirring woman,
and looking close to every thing. But I always suspected she had Scotch
blood in her veins; any thing else I could have looked over in her from
a regard to the family. She was a strict observer for self and servants
of Lent, and all fast days, but not holidays. One of the maids having
fainted three times the last day of Lent, to keep soul and body
together, we put a morsel of roast beef into her mouth, which came from
Sir Murtagh’s dinner, who never fasted, not he; but somehow or other it
unfortunately reached my lady’s ears, and the priest of the parish had a
complaint made of it the next day, and the poor girl was forced, as soon
as she could walk, to do penance for it, before she could get any peace
or absolution, in the house or out of it. However, my lady was very
charitable in her own way. She had a charity school for poor children,
where they were taught to read and write gratis, and where they were
kept well to spinning gratis for my lady in return; for she had always
heaps of duty yarn from the tenants, and got all her household linen out
of the estate from first to last; for after the spinning, the weavers on
the estate took it in hand for nothing, because of the looms my lady’s
interest could get from the Linen Board to distribute gratis. Then there
was a bleach-yard near us, and the tenant dare refuse my lady nothing,
for fear of a law-suit Sir Murtagh kept hanging over him about the
water-course. With these ways of managing, ‘tis surprising how cheap my
lady got things done, and how proud she was of it. Her table the same
way, kept for next to nothing;[F] duty fowls, and duty turkeys, and
duty geese, came as fast as we could eat ‘em, for my lady kept a sharp
look-out, and knew to a tub of butter every thing the tenants had, all
round. They knew her way, and what with fear of driving for rent and
Sir Murtagh’s lawsuits, they were kept in such good order, they never
thought of coming near Castle Rackrent without a present of something or
other--nothing too much or too little for my lady--eggs, honey, butter,
meal, fish, game, grouse, and herrings, fresh or salt, all went for
something. As for their young pigs, we had them, and the best bacon and
hams they could make up, with all young chickens in spring; but they
were a set of poor wretches, and we had nothing but misfortunes with
them, always breaking and running away. This, Sir Murtagh and my lady
said, was all their former landlord Sir Patrick’s fault, who let ‘em all
get the half year’s rent into arrear; there was something in that to be
sure. But Sir Murtagh was as much the contrary way; for let alone
making English tenants[G] of them, every soul, he was always driving
and driving, and pounding and pounding, and canting[H] and canting,
and replevying and replevying, and he made a good living of trespassing
cattle; there was always some tenant’s pig, or horse, or cow, or calf,
or goose, trespassing, which was so great a gain to Sir Murtagh, that he
did not like to hear me talk of repairing fences. Then his heriots and
duty-work[I] brought him in something, his turf was cut, his potatoes
set and dug, his hay brought home, and, in short, all the work about his
house done for nothing; for in all our leases there were strict clauses
heavy with penalties, which Sir Murtagh knew well how to enforce; so
many days’ duty work of man and horse, from every tenant, he was to
have, and had, every year; and when a man vexed him, why the finest day
he could pitch on, when the cratur was getting in his own harvest, or
thatching his cabin, Sir Murtagh made it a principle to call upon him
and his horse; so he taught ‘em all, as he said, to know the law of
landlord and tenant. As for law, I believe no man, dead or alive, ever
loved it so well as Sir Murtagh. He had once sixteen suits pending at
a time, and I never saw him so much himself; roads, lanes, bogs,
wells, ponds, eel-wires, orchards, trees, tithes, vagrants, gravelpits,
sandpits, dunghills, and nuisances, every thing upon the face of the
earth furnished him good matter for a suit. He used to boast that he had
a lawsuit for every letter in the alphabet. How I used to wonder to
see Sir Murtagh in the midst of the papers in his office! Why he could
hardly turn about for them. I made bold to shrug my shoulders once in
his presence, and thanked my stars I was not born a gentleman to so much
toil and trouble; but Sir Murtagh took me up short with his old proverb,
“learning is better than house or land.” Out of forty-nine suits which
he had, he never lost one but seventeen;[J] the rest he gained with
costs, double costs, treble costs sometimes; but even that did not pay.
He was a very learned man in the law, and had the character of it; but
how it was I can’t tell, these suits that he carried cost him a power of
money; in the end he sold some hundreds a year of the family estate; but
he was a very learned man in the law, and I know nothing of the matter,
except having a great regard for the family; and I could not help
grieving when he sent me to post up notices of the sale of the
fee-simple of the lands and appurtenances of Timoleague. “I know, honest
Thady,” says he, to comfort me, “what I’m about better than you do; I’m
only selling to get the ready money wanting to carry on my suit with
spirit with the Nugents of Carrickashaughlin.”

He was very sanguine about that suit with the Nugents of
Carrickashaughlin. He could have gained it, they say, for certain, had
it pleased Heaven to have spared him to us, and it would have been
at the least a plump two thousand a-year in his way; but things were
ordered otherwise, for the best to be sure. He dug up a fairy-mount[2]
against my advice, and had no luck afterwards. Though a learned man in
the law, he was a little too incredulous in other matters. I warned him
that I heard the very Banshee[3] that my grandfather heard under Sir
Patrick’s window a few days before his death. But Sir Murtagh thought
nothing of the Banshee, nor of his cough, with a spitting of blood,
brought on, I understand, by catching cold in attending the courts,
and overstraining his chest with making himself heard in one of his
favourite causes. He was a great speaker with a powerful voice; but his
last speech was not in the courts at all. He and my lady, though both
of the same way of thinking in some things, and though she was as good a
wife and great economist as you could see, and he the best of husbands,
as to looking into his affairs, and making money for his family; yet
I don’t know how it was, they had a great deal of sparring and jarring
between them. My lady had her privy purse--and she had her weed
ashes,[L] and her sealing money[M] upon the signing of all the leases,
with something to buy gloves besides; and, besides, again often took
money from the tenants, if offered properly, to speak for them to Sir
Murtagh about abatements and renewals. Now the weed ashes and the glove
money he allowed her clear perquisites; though once when he saw her in
a new gown saved out of the weed ashes, he told her to my face (for he
could say a sharp thing), that she should not put on her weeds before
her husband’s death. But in a dispute about an abatement, my lady would
have the last word, and Sir Murtagh grew mad;[N] I was within hearing of
the door, and now I wish I had made bold to step in. He spoke so loud,
the whole kitchen was out on the stairs.[O] All on a sudden he stopped
and my lady too. Something has surely happened, thought I--and so it
was, for Sir Murtagh in his passion broke a blood-vessel, and all the
law in the land could do nothing in that case. My lady sent for five
physicians, but Sir Murtagh died, and was buried. She had a fine
jointure settled upon her, and took herself away to the great joy of the
tenantry. I never said any thing one way or the other, whilst she was
part of the family, but got up to see her go at three o’clock in the
morning. “It’s a fine morning, honest Thady,” says she; “good bye to
ye,” and into the carriage she stepped, without a word more, good or
bad, or even half-a-crown; but I made my bow, and stood to see her safe
out of sight for the sake of the family.

Then we were all bustle in the house, which made me keep out of the way,
for I walk slow and hate a bustle; but the house was all hurry-skurry,
preparing for my new master. Sir Murtagh, I forgot to notice, had no
childer;[4] so the Rackrent estate went to his younger brother, a young
dashing officer, who came amongst us before I knew for the life of me
where-abouts I was, in a gig or some of them things, with another spark
along with him, and led horses, and servants, and dogs, and scarce a
place to put any Christian of them into; for my late lady had sent all
the feather-beds off before her, and blankets and household linen, down
to the very knife cloths, on the cars to Dublin, which were all her own,
lawfully paid for out of her own money. So the house was quite bare,
and my young master, the moment ever he set foot in it out of his gig,
thought all those things must come of themselves, I believe, for he
never looked after any thing at all, but harum-scarum called for every
thing as if we were conjurers, or he in a public-house. For my part,
I could not bestir myself any how; I had been so much used to my late
master and mistress, all was upside down with me, and the new servants
in the servants’ hall were quite out of my way; I had nobody to talk
to, and if it had not been for my pipe and tobacco, should, I verily
believe, have broke my heart for poor Sir Murtagh.

But one morning my new master caught a glimpse of me as I was looking at
his horse’s heels, in hopes of a word from him. “And is that old Thady?”
 says he, as he got into his gig: I loved him from that day to this,
his voice was so like the family; and he threw me a guinea out of his
waistcoat pocket, as he drew up the reins with the other hand, his horse
rearing too; I thought I never set my eyes on a finer figure of a man,
quite another sort from Sir Murtagh, though withal, _to me_, a family
likeness. A fine life we should have led, had he stayed amongst us, God
bless him! He valued a guinea as little as any man: money to him was no
more than dirt, and his gentleman and groom, and all belonging to him,
the same; but the sporting season over, he grew tired of the place, and
having got down a great architect for the house, and an improver for
the grounds, and seen their plans and elevations, he fixed a day for
settling with the tenants, but went off in a whirlwind to town, just as
some of them came into the yard in the morning. A circular letter came
next post from the new agent, with news that the master was sailed
for England, and he must remit 500_l_. to Bath for his use before a
fortnight was at an end; bad news still for the poor tenants, no change
still for the better with them. Sir Kit Rackrent, my young master, left
all to the agent; and though he had the spirit of a prince, and lived
away to the honour of his country abroad, which I was proud to hear
of, what were we the better for that at home? The agent was one of your
middle men,[5] who grind the face of the poor, and can never bear a man
with a hat upon his head: he ferreted the tenants out of their lives;
not a week without a call for money, drafts upon drafts from Sir Kit;
but I laid it all to the fault of the agent; for, says I, what can Sir
Kit do with so much cash, and he a single man? but still it went. Rents
must be all paid up to the day, and afore; no allowance for improving
tenants, no consideration for those who had built upon their farms:
no sooner was a lease out, but the land was advertised to the highest
bidder, all the old tenants turned out, when they spent their substance
in the hope and trust of a renewal from the landlord. All was now let at
the highest penny to a parcel of poor wretches, who meant to run away,
and did so, after taking two crops out of the ground. Then fining down
the year’s rent came into fashion,[P] any thing for the ready penny; and
with all this, and presents to the agent and the driver,[Q] there was
no such thing as standing it. I said nothing, for I had a regard for the
family; but I walked about thinking if his honour Sir Kit knew all this,
it would go hard with him, but he’d see us righted; not that I had any
thing for my own share to complain of, for the agent was always very
civil to me, when he came down into the country, and took a great deal
of notice of my son Jason. Jason Quirk, though he be my son, I must say,
was a good scholar from his birth, and a very ‘cute lad: I thought to
make him a priest,[R] but he did better for himself: seeing how he
was as good a clerk as any in the county, the agent gave him his rent
accounts to copy, which he did first of all for the pleasure of obliging
the gentleman, and would take nothing at all for his trouble, but was
always proud to serve the family. By-and-by a good farm bounding us to
the east fell into his honour’s hands, and my son put in a proposal for
it: why shouldn’t he, as well as another? The proposals all went over to
the master at the Bath, who knowing no more of the land than the child
unborn, only having once been out a grousing on it before he went to
England; and the value of lands, as the agent informed him, falling
every year in Ireland, his honour wrote over in all haste a bit of a
letter, saying he left it all to the agent, and that he must let it
as well as he could to the best bidder, to be sure, and send him over
200_l_., by return of post: with this the agent gave me a hint, and I
spoke a good word for my son, and gave out in the country that nobody
need bid against us. So his proposal was just the thing, and he a good
tenant; and he got a promise of an abatement in the rent, after the
first year, for advancing the half year’s rent at signing the lease,
which was wanting to complete the agent’s 200_l_., by the return of the
post, with all which my master wrote back he was well satisfied. About
this time we learned from the agent as a great secret, how the money
went so fast, and the reason of the thick coming of the master’s drafts:
he was a little too fond of play; and Bath, they say, was no place for a
young man of his fortune, where there were so many of his own countrymen
too hunting him up and down, day and night, who had nothing to lose.
At last, at Christmas, the agent wrote over to stop the drafts, for he
could raise no more money on bond or mortgage, or from the tenants, or
any how, nor had he any more to lend himself, and desired at the same
time to decline the agency for the future, wishing Sir Kit his health
and happiness, and the compliments of the season, for I saw the letter
before ever it was sealed, when my son copied it. When the answer came,
there was a new turn in affairs, and the agent was turned out; and my
son Jason, who had corresponded privately with his honour occasionally
on business, was forthwith desired by his honour to take the accounts
into his own hands, and look them over till further orders. It was
a very spirited letter to be sure: Sir Kit sent his service, and the
compliments of the season, in return to the agent, and he would fight
him with pleasure to-morrow, or any day, for sending him such a letter,
if he was born a gentleman, which he was sorry (for both their sakes)
to find (too late) he was not. Then, in a private postscript, he
condescended to tell us, that all would be speedily settled to his
satisfaction, and we should turn over a new leaf, for he was going to be
married in a fortnight to the grandest heiress in England, and had only
immediate occasion at present for 200_l_., as he would not choose
to touch his lady’s fortune for travelling expenses home to Castle
Rackrent, where he intended to be, wind and weather permitting, early in
the next month; and desired fires, and the house to be painted, and the
new building to go on as fast as possible, for the reception of him and
his lady before that time; with several words besides in the letter,
which we could not make out, because, God bless him! he wrote in such
a flurry. My heart warmed to my new lady when I read this; I was almost
afraid it was too good news to be true; but the girls fell to scouring,
and it was well they did, for we soon saw his marriage in the paper,
to a lady with I don’t know how many tens of thousand pounds to her
fortune: then I watched the post-office for his landing; and the news
came to my son of his and the bride being in Dublin, and on the way home
to Castle Rackrent. We had bonfires all over the country, expecting
him down the next day, and we had his coming of age still to celebrate,
which he had not time to do properly before he left the country;
therefore a great ball was expected, and great doings upon his coming,
as it were, fresh to take possession of his ancestors’ estate. I never
shall forget the day he came home: we had waited and waited all day long
till eleven o’clock at night, and I was thinking of sending the boy to
lock the gates, and giving them up for that night, when there came the
carriages thundering up to the great hall door. I got the first sight of
the bride; for when the carriage door opened, just as she had her foot
on the steps, I held the flam[S] full in her face to light her, at
which she shut her eyes, but I had a full view of the rest, of her, and
greatly shocked I was, for by that light she was little better than a
blackamoor, and seemed crippled, but that was only sitting so long in
the chariot. “You’re kindly welcome to Castle Rackrent, my lady,” says I
(recollecting who she was); “did your honour hear of the bonfires?” His
honour spoke never a word, nor so much as handed her up the steps--he
looked to me no more like himself than nothing at all; I know I took him
for the skeleton of his honour: I was not sure what to say next to
one or t’other, but seeing she was a stranger in a foreign country, I
thought it but right to speak cheerful to her, so I went back again to
the bonfires. “My lady,” says I, as she crossed the hall, “there
would have been fifty times as many, but for fear of the horses, and
frightening your ladyship: Jason and I forbid them, please your honour.”
 With that she looked at me a little bewildered. “Will I have a fire
lighted in the state-room to-night?” was the next question I put to her,
but never a word she answered, so I concluded she could not speak a word
of English, and was from foreign parts. The short and the long of it
was, I couldn’t tell what to make of her; so I left her to herself, and
went straight down to the servants’ hall to learn something for certain
about her. Sir Kit’s own man was tired, but the groom set him a talking
at last, and we had it all out before ever I closed my eyes that night.
The bride might well be a great fortune--she was a _Jewish_ by all
accounts, who are famous for their great riches. I had never seen any
of that tribe or nation before, and could only gather, that she spoke
a strange kind of English of her own, that she could not abide pork or
sausages, and went neither to church or mass. Mercy upon his honour’s
poor soul, thought I; what will become of him and his, and all of us,
with his heretic blackamoor at the head of the Castle Rackrent estate! I
never slept a wink all night for thinking of it: but before the servants
I put my pipe in my mouth, and kept my mind to myself; for I had a great
regard for the family; and after this, when strange gentlemen’s servants
came to the house, and would begin to talk about the bride, I took
care to put the best foot foremost, and passed her for a nabob in the
kitchen, which accounted for her dark complexion and every thing.

The very morning after they came home, however, I saw plain enough
how things were between Sir Kit and my lady, though they were walking
together arm in arm after breakfast, looking at the new building and the
improvements. “Old Thady,” said my master, just as he used to do, “how
do you do?” “Very well, I thank your honour’s honour,” said I; but I saw
he was not well pleased, and my heart was in my mouth as I walked along
after him. “Is the large room damp, Thady?” said his honour. “Oh, damp,
your honour! how should it but be as dry as a bone,” says I, “after all
the fires we have kept in it day and night? it’s the barrack-room[T]
your honour’s talking on.” “And what is a barrack-room, pray, my dear?”
 were the first words I ever heard out of my lady’s lips. “No matter, my
dear!” said he, and went on talking to me, ashamed like I should witness
her ignorance. To be sure, to hear her talk one might have taken her for
an innocent,[U] for it was, “what’s this, Sir Kit? and what’s that,
Sir Kit?” all the way we went. To be sure, Sir Kit had enough to do to
answer her. “And what do you call that, Sir Kit?” said she, “that, that
looks like a pile of black bricks, pray, Sir Kit?” “My turf stack, my
dear,” said my master, and bit his lip. Where have you lived, my lady,
all your life, not to know a turf stack when you see it? thought I, but
I said nothing. Then, by-and-by, she takes out her glass, and begins
spying over the country. “And what’s all that black swamp out yonder,
Sir Kit?” says she. “My bog, my dear,” says he, and went on whistling.
“It’s a very ugly prospect, my dear,” says she. “You don’t see it, my
dear,” says he, “for we’ve planted it out, when the trees grow up in
summer time,” says he. “Where are the trees,” said she, “my dear?” still
looking through her glass. “You are blind, my dear,” says he; “what are
these under your eyes?” “These shrubs,” said she. “Trees,” said he. “May
be they are what you call trees in Ireland, my dear,” said she; “but
they are not a yard high, are they?” “They were planted out but last
year, my lady,” says I, to soften matters between them, for I saw she
was going the way to make his honour mad with her: “they are very
well grown for their age, and you’ll not see the bog of
Allyballycarricko’shaughlin at-all-at-all through the skreen, when once
the leaves come out. But, my lady, you must not quarrel with any part
or parcel of Allyballycarricko’shaughlin, for you don’t know how many
hundred years that same bit of bog has been in the family; we would not
part with the bog of Allyballycarricko’shaughlin upon no account at all;
it cost the late Sir Murtagh two hundred good pounds to defend his title
to it and boundaries against the O’Learys, who cut a road through it.”
 Now one would have thought this would have been hint enough for my lady,
but she fell to laughing like one out of their right mind, and made
me say the name of the bog over for her to get it by heart, a dozen
times--then she must ask me how to spell it, and what was the meaning
of it in English--Sir Kit standing by whistling all the while; I verily
believed she laid the corner stone of all her future misfortunes at that
very instant; but I said no more, only looked at Sir Kit.

There were no balls, no dinners, no doings; the country was all
disappointed--Sir Kit’s gentleman said in a whisper to me, it was all
my lady’s own fault, because she was so obstinate about the cross. “What
cross?” says I; “is it about her being a heretic?” “Oh, no such matter,”
 says he; “my master does not mind her heresies, but her diamond cross,
it’s worth I can’t tell you how much; and she has thousands of English
pounds concealed in diamonds about her, which she as good as promised to
give up to my master before he married, but now she won’t part with any
of them, and she must take the consequences.”

Her honey-moon, at least her Irish honey-moon, was scarcely well over,
when his honour one morning said to me, “Thady, buy me a pig!” and then
the sausages were ordered, and here was the first open breaking-out of
my lady’s troubles. My lady came down herself into the kitchen, to speak
to the cook about the sausages, and desired never to see them more at
her table. Now my master had ordered them, and my lady knew that. The
cook took my lady’s part, because she never came down into the kitchen,
and was young and innocent in housekeeping, which raised her pity;
besides, said she, at her own table, surely, my lady should order and
disorder what she pleases; but the cook soon changed her note, for my
master made it a principle to have the sausages, and swore at her for a
Jew herself, till he drove her fairly out of the kitchen; then, for fear
of her place, and because he threatened that my lady should give her no
discharge without the sausages, she gave up, and from that day forward
always sausages, or bacon, or pig meat in some shape or other, went up
to table; upon which my lady shut herself up in her own room, and my
master said she might stay there, with an oath: and to make sure of her,
he turned the key in the door, and kept it ever after in his pocket. We
none of us ever saw or heard her speak for seven years after that:[6] he
carried her dinner himself. Then his honour had a great deal of company
to dine with him, and balls in the house, and was as gay and gallant,
and as much himself as before he was married; and at dinner he always
drank my Lady Rackrent’s good health, and so did the company, and he
sent out always a servant, with his compliments to my Lady Rackrent, and
the company was drinking her ladyship’s health, and begged to know if
there was any thing at table he might send her; and the man came back,
after the sham errand, with my Lady Rackrent’s compliments, and she was
very much obliged to Sir Kit--she did not wish for any thing, but drank
the company’s health. The country, to be sure, talked and wondered at
my lady’s being shut up, but nobody chose to interfere or ask any
impertinent questions, for they knew my master was a man very apt
to give a short answer himself, and likely to call a man out for it
afterwards; he was a famous shot; had killed his man before he came
of age, and nobody scarce dared look at him whilst at Bath. Sir Kit’s
character was so well known in the country, that he lived in peace
and quietness ever after, and was a great favourite with the
ladies, especially when in process of time, in the fifth year of her
confinement, my Lady Rackrent fell ill, and took entirely to her bed,
and he gave out that she was now skin and bone, and could not last
through the winter. In this he had two physicians’ opinions to back him
(for now he called in two physicians for her), and tried all his arts to
get the diamond cross from her on her death-bed, and to get her to make
a will in his favour of her separate possessions; but there she was too
tough for him. He used to swear at her behind her back, after kneeling
to her to her face, and call her in the presence of his gentleman
his stiff-necked Israelite, though before he married her, that same
gentleman told me he used to call her (how he could bring it out, I
don’t know) “my pretty Jessica!” To be sure it must have been hard for
her to guess what sort of a husband he reckoned to make her. When she
was lying, to all expectation, on her death-bed of a broken heart, I
could not but pity her, though she was a Jewish; and considering too it
was no fault of hers to be taken with my master so young as she was at
the Bath, and so fine a gentleman as Sir Kit was when he courted her;
and considering too, after all they had heard and seen of him as a
husband, there were now no less than three ladies in our county talked
of for his second wife, all at daggers drawn with each other, as his
gentleman swore, at the balls, for Sir Kit for their partner,--I could
not but think them bewitched; but they all reasoned with themselves,
that Sir Kit would make a good husband to any Christian but a Jewish,
I suppose, and especially as he was now a reformed rake; and it was not
known how my lady’s fortune was settled in her will, nor how the Castle
Rackrent estate was all mortgaged, and bonds out against him, for he was
never cured of his gaming tricks; but that was the only fault he had,
God bless him!

My lady had a sort of fit, and it was given out she was dead, by
mistake: this brought things to a sad crisis for my poor master,--one
of the three ladies showed his letters to her brother, and claimed his
promises, whilst another did the same. I don’t mention names. Sir Kit,
in his defence, said he would meet any man who dared to question his
conduct, and as to the ladies, they must settle it amongst them who was
to be his second, and his third, and his fourth, whilst his first was
still alive, to his mortification and theirs. Upon this, as upon all
former occasions, he had the voice of the country with him, on account
of the great spirit and propriety he acted with. He met and shot the
first lady’s brother; the next day he called out the second, who had
a wooden-leg; and their place of meeting by appointment being in a new
ploughed field, the wooden-leg man stuck fast in it. Sir Kit, seeing his
situation, with great candour fired his pistol over his head; upon
which the seconds interposed, and convinced the parties there had been
a slight misunderstanding between them; thereupon they shook hands
cordially, and went home to dinner together. This gentleman, to show the
world how they stood together, and by the advice of the friends of both
parties, to re-establish his sister’s injured reputation, went out with
Sir Kit as his second, and carried his message next day to the last of
his adversaries: I never saw him in such fine spirits as that day he
went out--sure enough he was within ames-ace of getting quit handsomely
of all his enemies; but unluckily, after hitting the tooth-pick out of
his adversary’s finger and thumb, he received a ball in a vital part,
and was brought home, in little better than an hour after the affair,
speechless on a hand-barrow, to my lady. We got the key out of his
pocket the first thing we did, and my son Jason ran to unlock the
barrack-room, where my lady had been shut up for seven years, to
acquaint her with the fatal accident. The surprise bereaved her of her
senses at first, nor would she believe but we were putting some new
trick upon her, to entrap her out of her jewels, for a great while, till
Jason bethought himself of taking her to the window, and showed her
the men bringing Sir Kit up the avenue upon the hand-barrow, which had
immediately the desired effect; for directly she burst into tears, and
pulling her cross from her bosom, she kissed it with as great devotion
as ever I witnessed; and lifting up her eyes to heaven, uttered some
ejaculation, which none present heard; but I take the sense of it to be,
she returned thanks for this unexpected interposition in her favour when
she had least reason to expect it. My master was greatly lamented: there
was no life in him when we lifted him off the barrow, so he was laid
out immediately, and _waked_ the same night. The country was all in an
uproar about him, and not a soul but cried shame upon his murderer;
who would have been hanged surely, if he could have been brought to his
trial, whilst the gentlemen in the country were up about it; but he very
prudently withdrew himself to the continent before the affair was made
public. As for the young lady, who was the immediate cause of the fatal
accident, however innocently, she could never show her head after at the
balls in the county or any place; and by the advice of her friends and
physicians, she was ordered soon after to Bath, where it was expected,
if any where on this side of the grave, she would meet with the
recovery of her health and lost peace of mind. As a proof of his great
popularity, I need only add, that there was a song made upon my master’s
untimely death in the newspapers, which was in every body’s mouth,
singing up and down through the country, even down to the mountains,
only three days after his unhappy exit. He was also greatly bemoaned at
the Curragh,[V] where his cattle were well known; and all who had taken
up his bets were particularly inconsolable for his loss to society. His
stud sold at the cant[X] at the greatest price ever known in the county;
his favourite horses were chiefly disposed of amongst his particular
friends, who would give any price for them for his sake; but no ready
money was required by the new heir, who wished not to displease any
of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood just upon his coming to settle
amongst them; so a long credit was given where requisite, and the cash
has never been gathered in from that day to this.

But to return to my lady:--She got surprisingly well after my master’s
decease. No sooner was it known for certain that he was dead, than all
the gentlemen within twenty miles of us came in a body, as it were, to
set my lady at liberty, and to protest against her confinement, which
they now for the first time understood was against her own consent
The ladies too were as attentive as possible, striving who should be
foremost with their morning visits; and they that saw the diamonds spoke
very handsomely of them, but thought it a pity they were not bestowed,
if it had so pleased God, upon a lady who would have become them better.
All these civilities wrought little with my lady, for she had taken an
unaccountable prejudice against the country, and every thing belonging
to it, and was so partial to her native land, that after parting with
the cook, which she did immediately upon my master’s decease, I never
knew her easy one instant, night or day, but when she was packing up
to leave us. Had she meant to make any stay in Ireland, I stood a
great chance of being a great favourite with her; for when she found I
understood the weathercock, she was always finding some pretence to be
talking to me, and asking me which way the wind blew, and was it likely,
did I think, to continue fair for England. But when I saw she had made
up her mind to spend the rest of her days upon her own income and jewels
in England, I considered her quite as a foreigner, and not at all any
longer as part of the family. She gave no vails to the servants at
Castle Rackrent at parting, notwithstanding the old proverb of “_as rich
as a Jew_,” which she being a Jewish, they built upon with reason. But
from first to last she brought nothing but misfortunes amongst us; and
if it had not been all along with her, his honour, Sir Kit, would have
been now alive in all appearance. Her diamond cross was, they say, at
the bottom of it all; and it was a shame for her, being his wife, not to
show more duty, and to have given it up when he condescended to ask so
often for such a bit of a trifle in his distresses, especially when he
all along made it no secret he married for money. But we will not bestow
another thought upon her. This much I thought it lay upon my conscience
to say, in justice to my poor master’s memory.

‘Tis an ill wind that blows nobody no good--the same wind that took the
Jew Lady Rackrent over to England, brought over the new heir to Castle
Rackrent.

Here let me pause for breath in my story, for though I had a great
regard for every member of the family, yet without compare Sir Conolly,
commonly called, for short, amongst his friends, Sir Condy Rackrent, was
ever my great favourite, and, indeed, the most universally beloved man I
had ever seen or heard of, not excepting his great ancestor Sir Patrick,
to whose memory he, amongst other instances of generosity, erected a
handsome marble stone in the church of Castle Rackrent, setting forth
in large letters his age, birth, parentage, and many other virtues,
concluding with the compliment so justly due, that “Sir Patrick Rackrent
lived and died a monument of old Irish hospitality.”





CONTINUATION OF THE MEMOIRS OF THE RACKRENT FAMILY.



HISTORY OF SIR CONOLLY RACKRENT.


Sir Condy Rackrent, by the grace of God heir-at-law to the Castle
Rackrent estate, was a remote branch of the family: born to little or
no fortune of his own, he was bred to the bar; at which, having many
friends to push him, and no mean natural abilities of his own, he
doubtless would, in process of time, if he could have borne the drudgery
of that study, have been rapidly made king’s counsel, at the least; but
things were disposed of otherwise, and he never went the circuit but
twice, and then made no figure for want of a fee, and being unable to
speak in public. He received his education chiefly in the college of
Dublin; but before he came to years of discretion lived in the country,
in a small but slated house, within view of the end of the avenue.
I remember him bare footed and headed, running through the street of
O’Shaughlin’s town, and playing at pitch and toss, ball, marbles, and
what not, with the boys of the town, amongst whom my son Jason was a
great favourite with him. As for me, he was ever my white-headed boy:
often’s the time when I would call in at his father’s, where I was
always made welcome; he would slip down to me in the kitchen, and love
to sit on my knee, whilst I told him stories of the family, and the
blood from which he was sprung, and how he might look forward, if the
_then_ present man should die without childer, to being at the head
of the Castle Rackrent estate. This was then spoke quite and clear
at random to please the child, but it pleased Heaven to accomplish my
prophecy afterwards, which gave him a great opinion of my judgment in
business. He went to a little grammar-school with many others, and my
son amongst the rest, who was in his class, and not a little useful
to him in his book learning, which he acknowledged with gratitude
ever after. These rudiments of his education thus completed, he got
a-horseback, to which exercise he was ever addicted, and used to gallop
over the country while yet but a slip of a boy, under the care of Sir
Kit’s huntsman, who was very fond of him, and often lent him his gun,
and took him out a-shooting under his own eye. By these means he became
well acquainted and popular amongst the poor in the neighbourhood early;
for there was not a cabin at which he had not stopped some morning or
other, along with the huntsman, to drink a glass of burnt whiskey out of
an eggshell, to do him good and warm his heart, and drive the cold out
of his stomach. The old people always told him he was a great likeness
of Sir Patrick; which made him first have an ambition to take after him,
as far as his fortune should allow. He left us when of an age to enter
the college, and there completed his education and nineteenth year; for
as he was not born to an estate, his friends thought it incumbent on
them to give him the best education which could be had for love or
money; and a great deal of money consequently was spent upon him at
College and temple. He was a very little altered for the worse by what
he saw there of the great world; for when he came down into the country,
to pay us a visit, we thought him just the same man as ever, hand and
glove with every one, and as far from high, though not without his own
proper share of family pride, as any man ever you see. Latterly, seeing
how Sir Kit and the Jewish lived together, and that there was no one
between him and the Castle Rackrent estate, he neglected to apply to the
law as much as was expected of him; and secretly many of the tenants,
and others, advanced him cash upon his note of hand value received,
promising bargains of leases and lawful interest, should he ever come
into the estate. All this was kept a great secret, for fear the present
man, hearing of it, should take it into his head to take it ill of
poor Condy, and so should cut him off for ever, by levying a fine, and
suffering a recovery to dock the entail.[Y] Sir Murtagh would have been
the man for that; but Sir Kit was too much taken up philandering to
consider the law in this case, or any other. These practices I have
mentioned, to account for the state of his affairs, I mean Sir Condy’s,
upon his coming into the Castle Rackrent estate. He could not command
a penny of his first year’s income; which, and keeping no accounts, and
the great sight of company he did, with many other causes too numerous
to mention, was the origin of his distresses. My son Jason, who was now
established agent, and knew every thing, explained matters out of the
face to Sir Conolly, and made him sensible of his embarrassed situation.
With a great nominal rent-roll, it was almost all paid away in interest;
which being for convenience suffered to run on, soon doubled the
principal, and Sir Condy was obliged to pass new bonds for the interest,
now grown principal, and so on. Whilst this was going on, my son
requiring to be paid for his trouble, and many years’ service in the
family gratis, and Sir Condy not willing to take his affairs into his
own hands, or to look them even in the face, he gave my son a bargain of
some acres, which Jell out of lease, at a reasonable rent. Jason set
the land, as soon as his lease was sealed, to under tenants, to make the
rent, and got two hundred a-year profit rent; which was little enough
considering his long agency. He bought the land at twelve years’
purchase two years afterwards, when Sir Condy was pushed for money on
an execution, and was at the same time allowed for his improvements
thereon. There was a sort of hunting-lodge upon the estate, convenient
to my son Jason’s land, which he had his eye upon about this time; and
he was a little jealous of Sir Condy, who talked of setting it to a
stranger, who was just come into the country--Captain Moneygawl was the
man. He was son and heir to the Moneygawls of Mount Juliet’s town, who
had a great estate in the next county to ours; and my master was loth to
disoblige the young gentleman, whose heart was set upon the lodge; so
he wrote him back, that the lodge was at his service, and if he would
honour him with his company at Castle Rackrent, they could ride over
together some morning, and look at it, before signing the lease.
Accordingly the captain came over to us, and he and Sir Condy grew
the greatest friends ever you see, and were for ever out a-shooting or
hunting together, and were very merry in the evenings; and Sir Condy was
invited of course to Mount Juliet’s town; and the family intimacy that
had been in Sir Patrick’s time was now recollected, and nothing would
serve Sir Condy but he must be three times a-week at the least with
his new friends, which grieved me, who knew, by the captain’s groom and
gentleman, how they talked of him at Mount Juliet’s town, making
him quite, as one may say, a laughing-stock and a butt for the whole
company; but they were soon cured of _that_ by an accident that
surprised ‘em not a little, as it did me. There was a bit of a scrawl
found upon the waiting-maid of old Mr. Moneygawl’s youngest daughter,
Miss Isabella, that laid open the whole; and her father, they say, was
like _one out of his right mind_, and swore it was the last thing he
ever should have thought of, when he invited my master to his house,
that his daughter should think of such a match. But their talk signified
not a straw, for, as Miss. Isabella’s maid reported, her young mistress
was fallen over head and ears in love with Sir Condy, from the first
time that ever her brother brought him into the house to dinner: the
servant who waited that day behind my master’s chair was the first who
knew it, as he says; though it’s hard to believe him, for he did not
tell it till a great while afterwards; but, however, it’s likely enough,
as the thing turned out, that he was not far out of the way; for towards
the middle of dinner, as he says, they were talking of stage-plays,
having a playhouse, and being great play-actors at Mount Juliet’s town;
and Miss Isabella turns short to my master, and says, “Have you seen the
play-bill, Sir Condy?” “No, I have not,” said he. “Then more shame for
you,” said the captain her brother, “not to know that my sister is to
play Juliet to-night, who plays it better than any woman on or off the
stage in all Ireland.” “I am very happy to hear it,” said Sir Condy; and
there the matter dropped for the present. But Sir Condy all this time,
and it great while afterwards, was at a terrible nonplus; for he had
no liking, not he, to stage-plays, nor to Miss Isabella either; to his
mind, as it came out over a bowl of whiskey-punch at home, his little
Judy M’Quirk, who was daughter to a sister’s son of mine, was worth
twenty of Miss Isabella. He had seen her often when he stopped at her
father’s cabin to drink whiskey out of the egg-shell, out hunting,
before he came to the estate, and, as she gave out, was under something
like a promise of marriage to her. Any how, I could not but pity my poor
master, who was so bothered between them, and he an easy-hearted man,
that could not disoblige nobody, God bless him! To be sure, it was not
his place to behave ungenerous to Miss Isabella, who had disobliged all
her relations for his sake, as he remarked; and then she was locked up
in her chamber, and forbid to think of him any more, which raised his
spirit, because his family was, as he observed, as good as theirs at any
rate, and the Rackrents a suitable match for the Moneygawls any day in
the year: all which was true enough; but it grieved me to see, that
upon the strength of all this, Sir Condy was growing more in the mind to
carry off Miss Isabella to Scotland, in spite of her relations, as she
desired.

“It’s all over with our poor Judy!” said I, with a heavy sigh, making
bold to speak to him one night when he was a little cheerful, and
standing in the servants’ hall all alone with me, as was often his
custom. “Not at all,” said he; “I never was fonder of Judy than at this
present speaking; and to prove it to you,” said he, and he took from my
hand a halfpenny, change that I had just got along with my tobacco, “and
to prove it to you, Thady,” says he, “it’s a toss up with me which I
should marry this minute, her or Mr. Moneygawl of Mount Juliet’s town’s
daughter--so it is.” “Oh, boo! boo!” [7] says I, making light of it,
to see what he would go on to next; “your honour’s joking, to be sure;
there’s no compare between our poor Judy and Miss Isabella, who has a
great fortune, they say.” “I’m not a man to mind a fortune, nor never
was,” said Sir Condy, proudly, “whatever her friends may say; and to
make short of it,” says he, “I’m come to a determination upon the spot;”
 with that he swore such a terrible oath, as made me cross myself; “and
by this book,” said he, snatching up my ballad book, mistaking it for my
prayer book, which lay in the window; “and by this book,” says he, “and
by all the books that ever were shut and opened, it’s come to a toss-up
with me, and I’ll stand or fall by the toss; and so Thady, hand me over
that _pin_[8] out of the ink-horn,” and he makes a cross on the smooth
side of the halfpenny; “Judy M’Quirk,” says he, “her mark.” [9] God
bless him! his hand was a little unsteadied by all the whiskey punch he
had taken, but it was plain to see his heart was for poor Judy. My heart
was all as one as in my mouth when I saw the halfpenny up in the air,
but I said nothing at all; and when it came down, I was glad I had kept
myself to myself, for to be sure now it was all over with poor Judy.
“Judy’s out a luck,” said I, striving to laugh. “I’m out a luck,” said
he; and I never saw a man look so cast down: he took up the halfpenny
off the flag, and walked away quite sober-like by the shock. Now, though
as easy a man, you would think, as any in the wide world, there was no
such thing as making him unsay one of these sort of vows,[10] which he
had learned to reverence when young, as I well remember teaching him to
toss up for bog-berries on my knee. So I saw the affair was as good as
settled between him and Miss Isabella, and I had no more to say but
to wish her joy, which I did the week afterwards, upon her return from
Scotland with my poor master.

My new lady was young, as might be supposed of a lady that had been
carried off, by her own consent, to Scotland; but I could only see her
at first through her veil, which, from bashfulness or fashion, she kept
over her face. “And am I to walk through all this crowd of people, my
dearest love?” said she to Sir Condy, meaning us servants and tenants,
who had gathered at the hack gate. “My dear,” said Sir Condy, “there’s
nothing for it but to walk, or to let me carry you as far as the house,
for you see the back road is too narrow for a carriage, and the great
piers have tumbled down across the front approach; so there’s no driving
the right way, by reason of the ruins.” “Plato, thou reasonest well!”
 said she, or words to that effect, which I could no ways understand; and
again, when her foot stumbled against a broken bit of a car-wheel, she
cried out, “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” Well, thought I,
to be sure, if she’s no Jewish, like the last, she is a mad woman for
certain, which is as bad: it would have been as well for my poor master
to have taken up with poor Judy, who is in her right mind, any how.

She was dressed like a mad woman, moreover, more than like any one I
ever saw afore or since, and I could not take my eyes off her, but still
followed behind her; and her feathers on the top of her hat were broke
going in at the low back door, and she pulled out her little bottle out
of her pocket to smell to when she found herself in the kitchen, and
said, “I shall faint with the heat of this odious, odious place.” “My
dear, it’s only three steps across the kitchen, and there’s a fine air
if your veil was up,” said Sir Condy, and with that threw hack her veil,
so that I had then a full sight of her face; she had not at all the
colour of one going to faint, but a fine complexion of her own, as I
then took it to be, though her maid told me after it was all put on;
but even complexion and all taken in, she was no way, in point of good
looks, to compare to poor Judy; and with all she had a quality toss with
her; but may be it was my over-partiality to Judy, into whose place I
may say she stepped, that made me notice all this. To do her justice,
however, she was, when we came to know her better, very liberal in her
house-keeping, nothing at all of the skinflint in her; she left every
thing to the housekeeper; and her own maid, Mrs. Jane, who went with her
to Scotland, gave her the best of characters for generosity. She seldom
or ever wore a thing twice the same way, Mrs. Jane told us, and was
always pulling her things to pieces, and giving them away; never being
used, in her father’s house, to think of expense in any thing; and she
reckoned, to be sure, to go on the same way at Castle Rackrent; but,
when I came to inquire, I learned that her father was so mad with her
for running off, after his locking her up, and forbidding her to think
any more of Sir Condy, that he would not give her a farthing; and it was
lucky for her she had a few thousands of her own, which had been left to
her by a good grandmother, and these were very convenient to begin with.
My master and my lady set out in great style; they had the finest coach
and chariot, and horses and liveries, and cut the greatest dash in the
county, returning their wedding visits: and it was immediately reported,
that her father had undertaken to pay all my master’s debts, and of
course all his tradesmen gave him a new credit, and every thing went on
smack smooth, and I could not but admire my lady’s spirit, and was proud
to see Castle Rackrent again in all its glory. My lady had a fine taste
for building, and furniture, and playhouses, and she turned every thing
topsy-turvy, and made the barrack-room into a theatre, as she called it,
and she went on as if she had a mint of money at her elbow; and, to be
sure, I thought she knew best, especially as Sir Condy said nothing to
it one way or the other. All he asked, God bless him! was to live in
peace and quietness, and have his bottle or his whiskey punch at night
to himself. Now this was little enough, to be sure, for any gentleman;
but my lady couldn’t abide the smell of the whiskey punch. “My dear,”
 says he, “you liked it well enough before we were married, and why not
now?” “My dear,” said she, “I never smelt it, or I assure you I should
never have prevailed upon myself to marry you.” “My dear, I am sorry
you did not smell it; but we can’t help that now,” returned my master,
without putting himself in a passion, or going out of his way, but just
fair and easy helped himself to another glass, and drank it off to her
good health. All this the butler told me, who was going backwards and
forwards unnoticed with the jug, and hot water, and sugar, and all he
thought wanting. Upon my master’s swallowing the last glass of whiskey
punch, my lady burst into tears, calling him an ungrateful, base,
barbarous wretch! and went off into a fit of hysterics, as I think Mrs.
Jane called it, and my poor master was greatly frightened, this being
the first thing of the kind he had seen; and he fell straight on his
knees before her, and, like a good-hearted cratur as he was, ordered the
whiskey punch out of the room, and bid ‘em throw open all the windows,
and cursed himself: and then my lady came to herself again, and when
she saw him kneeling there, bid him get up, and not forswear himself any
more, for that she was sure he did not love her, and never had: this
we learned from Mrs. Jane, who was the only person left present at all
this. “My dear,” returns my master, thinking, to be sure, of Judy, as
well he might, “whoever told you so is an incendiary, and I’ll have ‘em
turned out of the house this minute, if you’ll only let me know which
of them it was.” “Told me what?” said my lady, starting upright in her
chair. “Nothing at all, nothing at all,” said my master, seeing he had
overshot himself, and that my lady spoke at random; “but what you said
just now, that I did not love you, Bella; who told you that?” “My own
sense,” she said, and she put her handkerchief to her face, and leant
back upon Mrs. Jane, and fell to sobbing as if her heart would break.
“Why now, Bella, this is very strange of you,” said my poor master; “if
nobody has told you--nothing, what is it you are taking on for at this
rate, and exposing yourself and me for this way?” “Oh, say no more, say
no more; every word you say kills me,” cried my lady; and she ran on
like one, as Mrs. Jane says, raving, “Oh, Sir Condy, Sir Condy! I that
had hoped to find in you----” “Why now, faith, this is a little too
much; do, Bella, try to recollect yourself, my dear; am not I your
husband, and of your own choosing; and is not that enough?” “Oh, too
much! too much!” cried my lady, wringing her hands. “Why, my dear, come
to your right senses, for the love of heaven. See, is not the whiskey
punch, jug and bowl, and all, gone out of the room long ago? What is it,
in the wide world, you have to complain of?” But still my lady sobbed
and sobbed, and called herself the most wretched of women; and among
other out-of-the-way provoking things, asked my master, was he fit for
company for her, and he drinking all night? This nettling him, which it
was hard to do, he replied, that as to drinking all night, he was then
as sober as she was herself, and that it was no matter how much a man
drank, provided it did no ways affect or stagger him: that as to being
fit company for her, he thought himself of a family to be fit company
for any lord or lady in the land; but that he never prevented her from
seeing and keeping what company she pleased, and that he had done his
best to make Castle Rackrent pleasing to her since her marriage, having
always had the house full of visitors, and if her own relations were not
amongst them, he said that was their own fault, and their pride’s fault,
of which he was sorry to find her ladyship had so unbecoming a share. So
concluding, he took his candle and walked off to his room, and my lady
was in her tantarums for three days after; and would have been so much
longer, no doubt, but some of her friends, young ladies, and cousins,
and second cousins, came to Castle Rackrent, by my poor master’s express
invitation, to see her, and she was in a hurry to get up, as Mrs. Jane
called it, a play for them, and so got well, and was as finely dressed,
and as happy to look at, as ever; and all the young ladies, who used to
be in her room dressing of her, said, in Mrs. Jane’s hearing, that my
lady was the happiest bride ever they had seen, and that to be sure a
love-match was the only thing for happiness, where the parties could any
way afford it.

As to affording it, God knows it was little they knew of the matter;
my lady’s few thousands could not last for ever, especially the way she
went on with them; and letters from tradesfolk came every post thick and
threefold with bills as long as my arm, of years’ and years’ standing:
my son Jason had ‘em all handed over to him, and the pressing letters
were all unread by Sir Condy, who hated trouble, and could never be
brought to hear talk of business, but still put it off and put it off,
saying, settle it any how, or bid ‘em call again to-morrow, or speak to
me about it some other time. Now it was hard to find the right time to
speak, for in the mornings he was a-bed, and in the evenings over
his bottle, where no gentleman chooses to be disturbed. Things in a
twelvemonth or so came to such a pass there was no making a shift to go
on any longer, though we were all of us well enough used to live from
hand to mouth at Castle Rackrent. One day, I remember, when there was a
power of company, all sitting after dinner in the dusk, not to say dark,
in the drawing-room, my lady having rung five times for candles, and
none to go up, the housekeeper sent up the footman, who went to my
mistress, and whispered behind her chair how it was. “My lady,” says he,
“there are no candles in the house.” “Bless me,” says she; “then take
a horse and gallop off as fast as you can to Carrick O’Fungus, and get
some.” “And in the mean time tell them to step into the playhouse, and
try if there are not some bits left,” added Sir Condy, who happened to
be within hearing. The man was sent up again to my lady, to let her know
there was no horse to go, but one that wanted a shoe. “Go to Sir Condy
then; I know nothing at all about the horses,” said my lady; “why do you
plague me with these things?” How it was settled I really forget, but to
the best of my remembrance, the boy was sent down to my son Jason’s
to borrow candles for the night. Another time in the winter, and on
a desperate cold day, there was no turf in for the parlour and above
stairs, and scarce enough for the cook in the kitchen; the little
_gossoon_[11] was sent off to the neighbours, to see and beg or borrow
some, but none could he bring back with him for love or money; so as
needs must, we were forced to trouble Sir Condy--“Well, and if there’s
no turf to be had in the town or country, why what signifies talking
any more about it; can’t ye go and cut down a tree?” “Which tree, please
your honour?” I made bold to say. “Any tree at all that’s good to burn,”
 said Sir Condy; “send off smart and get one down, and the fires lighted,
before my lady gets up to breakfast, or the house will be too hot to
hold us.” He was always very considerate in all things about my lady,
and she wanted for nothing whilst he had it to give. Well, when things
were tight with them about this time, my son Jason put in a word
again about the lodge, and made a genteel offer to lay down the
purchase-money, to relieve Sir Condy’s distresses. Now Sir Condy had
it from the best authority, that there were two writs come down to the
sheriff against his person, and the sheriff, as ill luck would have it,
was no friend of his, and talked how he must do his duty, and how he
would do it, if it was against the first man in the country, or even
his own brother; let alone one who had voted against him at the last
election, as Sir Condy had done. So Sir Condy was fain to take the
purchase-money of the lodge from my son Jason to settle matters; and
sure enough it was a good bargain for both parties, for my son bought
the fee-simple of a good house for him and his heirs for ever, for
little or nothing, and by selling of it for that same, my master saved
himself from a gaol. Every way it turned out fortunate for Sir Condy;
for before the money was all gone there came a general election, and he
being so well beloved in the county, and one of the oldest families, no
one had a better right to stand candidate for the vacancy; and he was
called upon by all his friends, and the whole county I may say, to
declare himself against the old member, who had little thought of a
contest. My master did not relish the thoughts of a troublesome canvass,
and all the ill-will he might bring upon himself by disturbing the peace
of the county, besides the expense, which was no trifle; but all his
friends called upon one another to subscribe, and they formed themselves
into a committee, and wrote all his circular letters for him, and
engaged all his agents, and did all the business unknown to him; and he
was well pleased that it should be so at last, and my lady herself was
very sanguine about the election; and there was open house kept night
and day at Castle Rackrent, and I thought I never saw my lady look so
well in her life as she did at that time: there were grand dinners, and
all the gentlemen drinking success to Sir Condy till they were carried
off; and then dances and balls, and the ladies all finishing with a
raking pot of tea in the morning.[Z] Indeed it was well the company
made it their choice to sit up all nights, for there were not half
beds enough for the sights of people that were in it, though there were
shake-downs in the drawing-room always made up before sunrise for those
that liked it. For my part, when I saw the doings that were going on,
and the loads of claret that went down the throats of them that had no
right to be asking for it, and the sights of meat that went up to table
and never came down, besides what was carried off to one or t’other
below stairs, I couldn’t but pity my poor master, who was to pay for
all; but I said nothing, for fear of gaining myself ill-will. The day of
election will come some time or other, says I to myself, and all will
be over; and so it did, and a glorious day it was as any I ever had the
happiness to see. “Huzza! huzza! Sir Condy Rackrent for ever!” was the
first thing I hears in the morning, and the same and nothing else all
day, and not a soul sober only just when polling, enough to give their
votes as became ‘em, and to stand the browbeating of the lawyers, who
came tight enough upon us; and many of our freeholders were knocked off,
having never a freehold that they could safely swear to, and Sir Condy
was not willing to have any man perjure himself for his sake, as was
done on the other side, God knows; but no matter for that. Some of our
friends were dumb-founded, by the lawyers asking them: Had they ever
been upon the ground where their free-holds lay? Now, Sir Condy being
tender of the consciences of them that had not been on the ground, and
so could not swear to a freehold when cross-examined by them lawyers,
sent out for a couple of cleaves-full of the sods of his farm of
Gulteeshinnagh[12] and as soon as the sods came into town, he set each
man upon his sod, and so then, ever after, you know, they could fairly
swear they had been upon the ground.[13] We gained the day by this piece
of honesty.[A2] I thought I should have died in the streets for joy when
I seed my poor master chaired, and he bareheaded, and it raining as hard
as it could pour; but all the crowds following him up and down, and
he bowing and shaking hands with the whole town. “Is that Sir Condy
Rackrent in the chair?” says a stranger man in the crowd. “The same,”
 says I; “who else should it he? God bless him!” “And I take it, then,
you belong to him?” says he. “Not at all,” says I; “but I live under
him, and have done so these two hundred years and upwards, me and mine.”
 “It’s lucky for you, then,” rejoins he, “that he is where he is; for
was he any where else but in the chair, this minute he’d be in a worse
place; for I was sent down on purpose to put him up,[14] and here’s my
order for so doing in my pocket.” It was a writ that villain the wine
merchant had marked against my poor master for some hundreds of an old
debt, which it was a shame to be talking of at such a time as this.
“Put it in your pocket again, and think no more of it any ways for seven
years to come, my honest friend,” says I; “he’s a member of parliament
now, praised be God, and such as you can’t touch him: and if you’ll take
a fool’s advice, I’d have you keep out of the way this day, or you’ll
run a good chance of getting your deserts amongst my master’s friends,
unless you choose to drink his health like every body else.” “I’ve no
objection to that in life,” said he; so we went into one of the public
houses kept open for my master; and we had a great deal of talk about
this thing and that. “And how is it,” says he, “your master keeps on so
well upon his legs? I heard say he was off Holantide twelvemonth past.”
 “Never was better or heartier in his life,” said I. “It’s not that I’m
after speaking of,” said he; “but there was a great report of his being
ruined.” “No matter,” says I, “the sheriffs two years running were his
particular friends, and the sub-sheriffs were both of them gentlemen,
and were properly spoken to; and so the writs lay snug with them, and
they, as I understand by my son Jason the custom in them cases is,
returned the writs as they came to them to those that sent ‘em; much
good may it do them! with a word in Latin, that no such person as
Sir Condy Rackrent, Bart., was to be found in those parts.” “Oh, I
understand all those ways better, no offence, than you,” says he,
laughing, and at the same time filling his glass to my master’s good
health, which convinced me he was a warm friend in his heart after
all, though appearances were a little suspicious or so at first. “To
be sure,” says he, still cutting his joke, “when a man’s over head and
shoulders in debt, he may live the faster for it, and the better, if he
goes the right way about it; or else how is it so many live on so well,
as we see every day, after they are ruined?” “How is it,” says I, being
a little merry at the time; “how is it but just as you see the ducks
in the chicken-yard, just after their heads are cut off by the cook,
running round and round faster than when alive?” At which conceit he
fell a laughing, and remarked he had never had the happiness yet to see
the chicken-yard at Castle Rackrent. “It won’t be long so, I hope,” says
I; “you’ll be kindly welcome there, as every body is made by my master:
there is not a freer spoken gentleman, or a better beloved, high or low,
in all Ireland.” And of what passed after this I’m not sensible, for we
drank Sir Condy’s good health and the downfall of his enemies till we
could stand no longer ourselves. And little did I think at the time,
or till long after, how I was harbouring my poor master’s greatest of
enemies myself. This fellow had the impudence, after coming to see the
chicken-yard, to get me to introduce him to my son Jason; little more
than the man that never was born did I guess at his meaning by this
visit: he gets him a correct list fairly drawn out from my son Jason of
all my master’s debts, and goes straight round to the creditors and buys
them all up, which he did easy enough, seeing the half of them never
expected to see their money out of Sir Condy’s hands. Then, when this
base-minded limb of the law, as I afterward detected him in being, grew
to be sole creditor over all, he takes him out a custodiam on all the
denominations and sub-denominations, and every carton[B2] and half
carton upon the estate; and not content with that, must have an
execution against the master’s goods and down to the furniture, though
little worth, of Castle Rackrent itself. But this is a part of my story
I’m not come to yet, and its bad to be forestalling: ill news flies fast
enough all the world over.

To go back to the day of the election, which I never think of but with
pleasure and tears of gratitude for those good times; after the election
was quite and clean over, there comes shoals of people from all parts,
claiming to have obliged my master with their votes, and putting him in
mind of promises which he could never remember himself to have made: one
was to have a freehold for each of his four sons; another was to have
a renewal of a lease; another an abatement; one came to be paid ten
guineas for a pair of silver buckles sold my master on the hustings,
which turned out to be no better than copper gilt; another had a long
bill for oats, the half of which never went into the granary to my
certain knowledge, and the other half were not fit for the cattle to
touch; but the bargain was made the week before the election, and the
coach and saddle horses were got into order for the day, besides a vote
fairly got by them oats; so no more reasoning on that head; but then
there was no end to them that were telling Sir Condy he had engaged to
make their sons excisemen, or high constables, or the like; and as for
them that had bills to give in for liquor, and beds, and straw, and
ribands, and horses, and postchaises for the gentlemen freeholders that
came from all parts and other counties to vote for my master, and were
not, to be sure, to be at any charges, there was no standing against all
these; and, worse than all, the gentlemen of my master’s committee, who
managed all for him, and talked how they’d bring him in without costing
him a penny, and subscribed by hundreds very genteelly, forgot to pay
their subscriptions, and had laid out in agents’ and lawyers’ fees and
secret service money the Lord knows how much; and my master could never
ask one of them for their subscription you are sensible, nor for the
price of a fine horse he had sold one of them; so it all was left at his
door. He could never, God bless him again! I say, bring himself to ask
a gentleman for money, despising such sort of conversation himself; but
others, who were not gentlemen born, behaved very uncivil in pressing
him at this very time, and all he could do to content ‘em all was to
take himself out of the way as fast as possible to Dublin, where my lady
had taken a house fitting for him as a member of parliament, to attend
his duty in there all the winter. I was very lonely when the whole
family was gone, and all the things they had ordered to go, and forgot,
sent after them by the car. There was then a great silence in Castle
Rackrent, and I went moping from room to room, hearing the doors clap
for want of right locks, and the wind through the broken windows, that
the glazier never would come to mend, and the rain coming through the
roof and best ceilings all over the house for want of the slater, whose
bill was not paid, besides our having no slates or shingles for that
part of the old building which was shingled and burnt when the chimney
took fire, and had been open to the weather ever since. I took myself to
the servants’ hall in the evening to smoke my pipe as usual, but missed
the bit of talk we used to have there sadly, and ever after was content
to stay in the kitchen and boil my little potatoes,[15] and put up my
bed there; and every post-day I looked in the newspaper, but no news of
my master in the House; he never spoke good or bad; but as the butler
wrote down word to my son Jason, was very ill used by the government
about a place that was promised him and never given, after his
supporting them against his conscience very honourably, and being
greatly abused for it, which hurt him greatly, he having the name of a
great patriot in the country before. The house and living in Dublin too
were not to be had for nothing, and my son Jason said, “Sir Condy must
soon be looking out for a new agent, for I’ve done my part, and can do
no more:--if my lady had the bank of Ireland to spend, it would go all
in one winter, and Sir Condy would never gainsay her, though he does not
care the rind of a lemon for her all the while.”

Now I could not bear to hear Jason giving out after this manner against
the family, and twenty people standing by in the street. Ever since he
had lived at the lodge of his own, he looked down, howsomever, upon poor
old Thady, and was grown quite a great gentleman, and had none of his
relations near him: no wonder he was no kinder to poor Sir Condy than to
his own kith or kin.[16] In the spring it was the villain that got the
list of the debts from him brought down the custodiam, Sir Condy still
attending his duty in parliament, and I could scarcely believe my own
old eyes, or the spectacles with which I read it, when I was shown my
son Jason’s name joined in the custodiam; but he told me it was only for
form’s sake, and to make things easier than if all the land was under
the power of a total stranger. Well, I did not know what to think; it
was hard to be talking ill of my own, and I could not but grieve for my
poor master’s fine estate, all torn by these vultures of the law; so I
said nothing, but just looked on to see how it would all end.

It was not till the month of June that he and my lady came down to
the country. My master was pleased to take me aside with him to the
brewhouse that same evening, to complain to me of my son and other
matters, in which he said he was confident I had neither art nor part;
he said a great deal more to me, to whom he had been fond to talk ever
since he was my white-headed boy, before he came to the estate; and all
that he said about poor Judy I can never forget, but scorn to repeat. He
did not say an unkind word of my lady, but wondered, as well he might,
her relations would do nothing for him or her, and they in all this
great distress. He did not take any thing long to heart, let it be as
it would, and had no more malice, or thought of the like in him, than a
child that can’t speak; this night it was all out of his head before
he went to his bed. He took his jug of whiskey punch--my lady was grown
quite easy about the whiskey punch by this time, and so I did suppose
all was going on right betwixt them, till I learnt the truth through
Mrs. Jane, who talked over their affairs to the housekeeper, and I
within hearing. The night my master came home thinking of nothing at all
but just making merry, he drank his bumper toast “to the deserts of
that old curmudgeon my father-in-law, and all enemies at Mount Juliet’s
Town.” Now my lady was no longer in the mind she formerly was, and did
no ways relish hearing her own friends abused in her presence, she said,
“Then why don’t they show themselves your friends,” said my master, “and
oblige me with the loan of the money I condescended, by your advice, my
dear, to ask? It’s now three posts since I sent off my letter, desiring
in the postscript a speedy answer by the return of the post, and no
account at all from them yet.” “I expect they’ll write to _me_ next
post,” says my lady, and that was all that passed then; but it was easy
from this to guess there was a coolness betwixt them, and with good
cause.

The next morning, being post-day, I sent off the gossoon early to
the post-office, to see was there any letter likely to set matters to
rights, and he brought back one with the proper post-mark upon it, sure
enough, and I had no time to examine, or make any conjecture more about
it, for into the servants’ hall pops Mrs. Jane with a blue bandbox in
her hand, quite entirely mad. “Dear ma’am, and what’s the matter?” says
I. “Matter enough,” says she; “don’t you see my bandbox is wet through,
and my best bonnet here spoiled, besides my lady’s, and all by the rain
coming in through that gallery window, that you might have got mended,
if you’d had any sense, Thady, all the time we were in town in the
winter?” “Sure, I could not get the glazier, ma’am,” says I. “You might
have stopped it up any how,” says she. “So I did, ma’am, to the best
of my ability; one of the panes with the old pillow-case, and the other
with a piece of the old stage green curtain; sure I was as careful as
possible all the time you were away, and not a drop of rain came in at
that window of all the windows in the house, all winter, ma’am, when
under my care; and now the family’s come home, and it’s summer time,
I never thought no more about it, to be sure; but dear, it’s a pity to
think of your bonnet, ma’am; but here’s what will please you, ma’am, a
letter from Mount Juliet’s Town for my lady.” With that she snatches it
from me without a word more, and runs up the back stairs to my mistress;
I follows with a slate to make up the window. This window was in the
long passage, or gallery, as my lady gave out orders to have it called,
in the gallery leading to my master’s bedchamber and hers. And when I
went up with the slate, the door having no lock, and the bolt spoilt,
was a-jar after Mrs. Jane, and as I was busy with the window, I heard
all that was saying within.

“Well, what’s in your letter, Bella, my dear?” says he: “you’re a long
time spelling it over.” “Won’t you shave this morning, Sir Condy?”
 says she, and put the letter into her pocket. “I shaved the day before
yesterday,” says he, “my dear, and that’s not what I’m thinking of
now; but any thing to oblige you, and to have peace and quietness, my
dear”--and presently I had the glimpse of him at the cracked glass over
the chimney-piece, standing up shaving himself to please my lady. But
she took no notice, but went on reading her book, and Mrs. Jane doing
her hair behind. “What is it you’re reading there, my dear?--phoo, I’ve
cut myself with this razor; the man’s a cheat that sold it me, but I
have not paid him for it yet: what is it you’re reading there? did you
hear me asking you, my dear?” “The Sorrows of Werter,” replies my lady,
as well as I could hear. “I think more of the sorrows of Sir Condy,”
 says my master, joking like. “What news from Mount Juliet’s Town?”
 “No news,” says she, “but the old story over again, my friends all
reproaching me still for what I can’t help now.” “Is it for marrying
me?” said my master, still shaving: “what signifies, as you say, talking
of that, when it can’t be help’d now?”

With that she heaved a great sigh, that I heard plain enough in the
passage. “And did not you use me basely, Sir Condy,” says she, “not to
tell me you were ruined before I married you?” “Tell you, my dear,”
 said he; “did you ever ask me one word about it? and had not you friends
enough of your own, that were telling you nothing else from morning to
night, if you’d have listened to them slanders?” “No slanders, nor
are my friends slanderers; and I can’t bear to hear them treated with
disrespect as I do,” says my lady, and took out her pocket handkerchief;
“they are the best of friends; and if I had taken their advice--. But my
father was wrong to lock me up, I own; that was the only unkind thing I
can charge him with; for if he had not locked me up, I should never have
had a serious thought of running away as I did.” “Well, my dear,” said
my master, “don’t cry and make yourself uneasy about it now, when it’s
all over, and you have the man of your own choice, in spite of ‘em all.”
 “I was too young, I know, to make a choice at the time you ran away with
me, I’m sure,” says my lady, and another sigh, which made my master,
half shaved as he was, turn round upon her in surprise. “Why, Bell,”
 says he, “you can’t deny what you know as well as I do, that it was at
your own particular desire, and that twice under your own hand and seal
expressed, that I should carry you off as I did to Scotland, and marry
you there.” “Well, say no more about it, Sir Condy,” said my lady,
pettish like--“I was a child then, you know.” “And as far as I know,
you’re little better now, my dear Bella, to be talking in this manner to
your husband’s _face_; but I won’t take it ill of you, for I know it’s
something in that letter you put into your pocket just now, that has set
you against me all on a sudden, and imposed upon your understanding.”
 “It’s not so very easy as you think it, Sir Condy, to impose upon _my_
understanding,” said my lady. “My dear,” says he, “I have, and with
reason, the best opinion of your understanding of any man now breathing;
and you know I have never set my own in competition with it till now,
my dear Bella,” says he, taking her hand from her book as kind as could
be--“till now, when I have the great advantage of being quite cool, and
you not; so don’t believe one word your friends say against your own Sir
Condy, and lend me the letter out of your pocket, till I see what it is
they can have to say.” “Take it then,” says she, “and as you are quite
cool, I hope it is a proper time to request you’ll allow me to comply
with the wishes of all my own friends, and return to live with my father
and family, during the remainder of my wretched existence, at Mount
Juliet’s Town.”

At this, my poor master fell back a few paces, like one that had been
shot. “You’re not serious, Bella,” says he; “and could you find it in
your heart to leave me this way in the very middle of my distresses,
all alone?” But recollecting himself after his first surprise, and
a moment’s time for reflection, he said, with a great deal of
consideration for my lady, “Well, Bella, my dear, I believe you are
right; for what could you do at Castle Rackrent, and an execution
against the goods coming down, and the furniture to be canted, and an
auction in the house all next week? so you have my full consent to go,
since that is your desire, only you must not think of my accompanying
you, which I could not in honour do upon the terms I always have been,
since our marriage, with your friends; besides, I have business to
transact at home; so in the mean time, if we are to have any breakfast
this morning, let us go down and have it for the last time in peace and
comfort, Bella.”

Then as I heard my master coming to the passage door, I finished
fastening up my slate against the broken pane; and when he came out, I
wiped down the window seat with my wig,[17] and bade him a good morrow
as kindly as I could, seeing he was in trouble, though he strove and
thought to hide it from me. “This window is all racked and tattered,”
 says I, “and it’s what I’m striving to mend.” “It _is_ all racked and
tattered, plain enough,” says he, “and never mind mending it, honest old
Thady,” says he; “it will do well enough for you and I, and that’s all
the company we shall have left in the house by-and-by.” “I’m sorry to
see your honour so low this morning,” says I; “but you’ll be better
after taking your breakfast.” “Step down to the servants’ hall,” said
he, “and bring me up the pen and ink into the parlour, and get a sheet
of paper from Mrs. Jane, for I have business that can’t brook to be
delayed; and come into the parlour with the pen and ink yourself, Thady,
for I must have you to witness my signing a paper I have to execute in a
hurry.” Well, while I was getting of the pen and ink-horn, and the sheet
of paper, I ransacked my brains to think what could be the papers my
poor master could have to execute in such a hurry, he that never thought
of such a thing as doing business afore breakfast, in the whole
course of his life, for any man living; but this was for my lady, as I
afterwards found, and the more genteel of him after all her treatment.

I was just witnessing the paper that he had scrawled over, and was
shaking the ink out of my pen upon the carpet, when my lady came in to
breakfast, and she started as if it had been a ghost! as well she might,
when she saw Sir Condy writing at this unseasonable hour. “That will do
very well, Thady,” says he to me, and took the paper I had signed to,
without knowing what upon the earth it might be, out of my hands, and
walked, folding it up, to my lady.

“You are concerned in this, my Lady Rackrent,” said he, putting it into
her hands; “and I beg you’ll keep this memorandum safe, and show it to
your friends the first thing you do when you get home; but put it in
your pocket now, my dear, and let us eat our breakfast, in God’s name.”
 “What is all this?” said my lady, opening the paper in great curiosity.
“It’s only a bit of a memorandum of what I think becomes me to do
whenever I am able,” says my master; “you know my situation, tied hand
and foot at the present time being, but that can’t last always, and when
I’m dead and gone, the land will be to the good, Thady, you know;
and take notice, it’s my intention your lady should have a clear five
hundred a year jointure off the estate afore any of my debts are paid.”
 “Oh, please your honour,” says I, “I can’t expect to live to see that
time, being now upwards of fourscore years of age, and you a young man,
and likely to continue so, by the help of God.” I was vexed to see my
lady so insensible too, for all she said was, “This is very genteel of
you, Sir Condy. You need not wait any longer, Thady;” so I just picked
up the pen and ink that had tumbled on the floor, and heard my master
finish with saying, “You behaved very genteel to me, my dear, when you
threw all the little you had in your own power along with yourself into
my hands; and as I don’t deny but what you may have had some things
to complain of,”--to be sure he was thinking then of Judy, or of the
whiskey punch, one or t’other, or both,--“and as I don’t deny but you
may have had something to complain of, my dear, it is but fair you
should have something in the form of compensation to look forward to
agreeably in future; besides, it’s an act of justice to myself, that
none of your friends, my dear, may ever have it to say against me, I
married for money, and not for love.” “That is the last thing I should
ever have thought of saying of you, Sir Condy,” said my lady, looking
very gracious. “Then, my dear,” said Sir Condy, “we shall part as good
friends as we met; so all’s right.”

I was greatly rejoiced to hear this, and went out of the parlour to
report it all to the kitchen. The next morning my lady and Mrs. Jane
set out for Mount Juliet’s Town in the jaunting car: many wondered at
my lady’s choosing to go away, considering all things, upon the jaunting
car, as if it was only a party of pleasure; but they did not know, till
I told them, that the coach was all broke in the journey down, and no
other vehicle but the car to be had; besides, my lady’s friends were to
send their coach to meet her at the cross roads; so it was all done very
proper.

My poor master was in great trouble after my lady left us. The execution
came down; and every thing at Castle Rackrent was seized by the gripers,
and my son Jason, to his shame be it spoken, amongst them. I wondered,
for the life of me, how he could harden himself to do it; but then he
had been studying the law, and had made himself Attorney Quirk; so he
brought down at once a heap of accounts upon my master’s head. To cash
lent, and to ditto, and to ditto, and to ditto, and oats, and bills paid
at the milliner’s and linen-draper’s, and many dresses for the fancy
balls in Dublin for my lady, and all the bills to the workmen and
tradesmen for the scenery of the theatre, and the chandler’s and
grocer’s bills, and tailor’s, besides butcher’s and baker’s, and worse
than all, the old one of that base wine merchant’s, that wanted to
arrest my poor master for the amount on the election day, for which
amount Sir Condy afterwards passed his note of hand, bearing lawful
interest from the date thereof; and the interest and compound interest
was now mounted to a terrible deal on many other notes and bonds for
money borrowed, and there was besides hush money to the sub-sheriffs,
and sheets upon sheets of old and new attorneys’ bills, with heavy
balances, _as per former account furnished_, brought forward with
interest thereon; then there was a powerful deal due to the crown
for sixteen years’ arrear of quit-rent of the town-lands of
Carrickshaughlin, with driver’s fees, and a compliment to the receiver
every year for letting the quit-rent run on to oblige Sir Condy, and
Sir Kit afore him. Then there were bills for spirits and ribands at the
election time, and the gentlemen of the committee’s accounts unsettled,
and their subscription never gathered; and there were cows to be paid
for, with the smith and farrier’s bills to be set against the rent of
the demesne, with calf and hay money; then there was all the servants’
wages, since I don’t know when, coming due to them, and sums advanced
for them by my son Jason for clothes, and boots, and whips, and odd
moneys for sundries expended by them in journeys to town and elsewhere,
and pocket-money for the master continually, and messengers and postage
before his being a parliament man; I can’t myself tell you what besides;
but this I know, that when the evening came on the which Sir Condy had
appointed to settle all with my son Jason, and when he comes into the
parlour, and sees the sight of bills and load of papers all gathered on
the great dining-table for him, he puts his hands before both his eyes,
and cried out, “Merciful Jasus! what is it I see before me?” Then I sets
an arm-chair at the table for him, and with a deal of difficulty he sits
him down, and my son Jason hands him over the pen and ink to sign to
this man’s bill and t’other man’s bill, all which he did without making
the least objections. Indeed, to give him his due, I never _seen_ a man
more fair and honest, and easy in all his dealings, from first to last,
as Sir Condy, or more willing to pay every man his own as far as he was
able, which is as much as any one can do. “Well,” says he, joking like
with Jason, “I wish we could settle it all with a stroke of my grey
goose quill. What signifies making me wade through all this ocean of
papers here; can’t you now, who understand drawing out an account,
debtor and creditor, just sit down here at the corner of the table and
get it done out for me, that I may have a clear view of the balance,
which is all I need be talking about, you know?” “Very true, Sir Condy;
nobody understands business better than yourself,” says Jason. “So I’ve
a right to do, being born and bred to the bar,” says Sir Condy. “Thady,
do step out and see are they bringing in the things for the punch,
for we’ve just done all we have to do for this evening.” I goes out
accordingly, and when I came back, Jason was pointing to the balance,
which was a terrible sight to my poor master. “Pooh! pooh! pooh!” says
he, “here’s so many noughts they dazzle my eyes, so they do, and put me
in mind of all I suffered, larning of my numeration table, when I was a
boy at the day-school along with you, Jason--units, tens, hundreds,
tens of hundreds. Is the punch ready, Thady?” says he, seeing me.
“Immediately; the boy has the jug in his hand; it’s coming up stairs,
please your honour, as fast as possible,” says I, for I saw his honour
was tired out of his life; but Jason, very short and cruel, cuts me off
with--“Don’t be talking of punch yet a while; it’s no time for punch yet
a bit--units, tens, hundreds,” goes he on, counting over the master’s
shoulder, units, tens, hundreds, thousands. “A-a-ah! hold your hand,”
 cries my master; “where in this wide world am I to find hundreds, or
units itself, let alone thousands?” “The balance has been running on too
long,” says Jason, sticking to him as I could not have done at the time,
if you’d have given both the Indies and Cork to boot; “the balance has
been running on too long, and I’m distressed myself on your account, Sir
Condy, for money, and the thing must be settled now on the spot, and the
balance cleared off,” says Jason. “I’ll thank you if you’ll only show
me how,” says Sir Condy. “There’s but one way,” says Jason, “and that’s
ready enough: when there’s no cash, what can a gentleman do, but go
to the land?” “How can you go to the land, and it under custodiam to
yourself already,” says Sir Condy, “and another custodiam hanging over
it? and no one at all can touch it, you know, but the custodees.”
 “Sure, can’t you sell, though at a loss? sure you can sell, and I’ve
a purchaser ready for you,” says Jason. “Have ye so?” said Sir Condy;
“that’s a great point gained; but there’s a thing now beyond all, that
perhaps you don’t know yet, barring Thady has let you into the secret.”
 “Sarrah bit of a secret, or any thing at all of the kind, has he learned
from me these fifteen weeks come St. John’s eve,” says I; “for we have
scarce been upon speaking terms of late: but what is it your honour
means of a secret?” “Why, the secret of the little keepsake I gave
my Lady Rackrent the morning she left us, that she might not go back
empty-handed to her friends.” “My Lady Rackrent, I’m sure, has baubles
and keepsakes enough, as those bills on the table will show,” says
Jason; “but whatever it is,” says he, taking up his pen, “we must add
it to the balance, for to be sure it can’t be paid for.” “No, nor can’t
till after my decease,” said Sir Condy; “that’s one good thing.” Then
colouring up a good deal, he tells Jason of the memorandum of the five
hundred a-year jointure he had settled upon my lady; at which Jason was
indeed mad, and said a great deal in very high words, that it was using
a gentleman, who had the management of his affairs, and was moreover his
principal creditor, extremely ill, to do such a thing without consulting
him, and against his knowledge and consent. To all which Sir Condy had
nothing to reply, but that upon his conscience, it was in a hurry and
without a moment’s thought on his part, and he was very sorry for it,
but if it was to do over again he would do the same; and he appealed to
me, and I was ready to give my evidence, if that would do, to the truth
of all he said.

So Jason with much ado was brought to agree to a compromise. “The
purchaser that I have ready,” says he, “will be much displeased, to be
sure, at the incumbrance on the land, but I must see and manage him;
here’s a deed ready drawn up; we have nothing to do but to put in the
consideration money and our names to it.” “And how much am I going
to sell?--the lands of O’Shaughlin’s Town, and the lands of
Gruneaghoolaghan, and the lands of Crookagnawaturgh,” says he, just
reading to himself,--“and--oh, murder, Jason! sure you won’t put this
in--the castle, stable, and appurtenances of Castle Rackrent.” “Oh,
murder!” says I, clapping my hands, “this is too bad, Jason.” “Why so?”
 said Jason, “when it’s all, and a great deal more to the back of it,
lawfully mine, was I to push for it.” “Look at him,” says I, pointing
to Sir Condy, who was just leaning back in his arm-chair, with his arms
falling beside him like one stupified; “is it you, Jason, that can stand
in his presence, and recollect all he has been to us, and all we have
been to him, and yet use him so at the last?” “Who will you find to use
him better, I ask you?” said Jason; “if he can get a better purchaser,
I’m content; I only offer to purchase, to make things easy, and oblige
him: though I don’t see what compliment I am under, if you come to that;
I have never had, asked, or charged more than sixpence in the pound,
receiver’s fees; and where would he have got an agent for a penny less?”
 “Oh, Jason! Jason! how will you stand to this in the face of the county
and all who know you?” says I; “and what will people think and say, when
they see you living here in Castle Rackrent, and the lawful owner turned
out of the seat of his ancestors, without a cabin to put his head into,
or so much as a potatoe to eat?” Jason, whilst I was saying this, and
a great deal more, made me signs, and winks, and frowns; but I took
no heed; for I was grieved and sick at heart for my poor master, and
couldn’t but speak.

“Here’s the punch,” says Jason, for the door opened; “here’s the punch!”
 Hearing that, my master starts up in his chair, and recollects himself,
and Jason uncorks the whiskey. “Set down the jug here,” says he, making
room for it beside the papers opposite to Sir Condy, but still not
stirring the deed that was to make over all. Well, I was in great hopes
he had some touch of mercy about him when I saw him making the punch,
and my master took a glass; but Jason put it back as he was going to
fill again, saying, “No, Sir Condy, it sha’n’t be said of me, I got your
signature to this deed when you were half-seas over: you know your name
and hand-writing in that condition would not, if brought before the
courts, benefit me a straw; wherefore let us settle all before we go
deeper into the punch-bowl.” “Settle all as you will,” said Sir Condy,
clapping his hands to his ears: “but let me hear no more; I’m bothered
to death this night.” “You’ve only to sign,” said Jason, putting the pen
to him. “Take all, and be content,” said my master. So he signed; and
the man who brought in the punch witnessed it, for I was not able, but
crying like a child; and besides, Jason said, which I was glad of, that
I was no fit witness, being so old and doting. It was so bad with me,
I could not taste a drop of the punch itself, though my master himself,
God bless him! in the midst of his trouble, poured out a glass for me,
and brought it up to my lips. “Not a drop; I thank your honour’s honour
as much as if I took it, though,” and I just set down the glass as it
was, and went out, and when I got to the street-door, the neighbour’s
childer, who were playing at marbles there, seeing me in great trouble,
left their play, and gathered about me to know what ailed me; and I
told them all, for it was a great relief to me to speak to these poor
childer, that seemed to have some natural feeling left in them: and
when they were made sensible that Sir Condy was going to leave Castle
Rackrent for good and all, they set up a whillalu that could be heard to
the farthest end of the street; and one fine boy he was, that my master
had given an apple to that morning, cried the loudest, but they all were
the same sorry, for Sir Condy was greatly beloved amongst the childer,
for letting them go a-nutting in the demesne, without saying a word to
them, though my lady objected to them. The people in the town, who were
the most of them standing at their doors, hearing the childer cry, would
know the reason of it; and when the report was made known, the people
one and all gathered in great anger against my son Jason, and terror at
the notion of his coming to be landlord over them, and they cried, “No
Jason! no Jason! Sir Condy! Sir Condy! Sir Condy Rackrent for ever!”
 and the mob grew so great and so loud, I was frightened, and made my way
back to the house to warn my son to make his escape, or hide himself for
fear of the consequences. Jason would not believe me till they came
all round the house, and to the windows with great shouts: then he grew
quite pale, and asked Sir Condy what had he best do? “I’ll tell you
what you’d best do,” said Sir Condy, who was laughing to see his
fright; “finish your glass first, then let’s go to the window and show
ourselves, and I’ll tell ‘em, or you shall, if you please, that I’m
going to the Lodge for change of air for my health, and by my own
desire, for the rest of my days.” “Do so,” said Jason, who never meant
it should have been so, but could not refuse him the Lodge at this
unseasonable time. Accordingly Sir Condy threw up the sash, and
explained matters, and thanked all his friends, and bid ‘em look in at
the punch-bowl, and observe that Jason and he had been sitting over
it very good friends; so the mob was content, and he sent ‘em out some
whiskey to drink his health, and that was the last time his honour’s
health was ever drunk at Castle Rackrent.

The very next day, being too proud, as he said to me, to stay an hour
longer in a house that did not belong to him, he sets off to the Lodge,
and I along with him not many hours after. And there was great bemoaning
through all O’Shaughlin’s Town, which I stayed to witness, and gave my
poor master a full account of when I got to the Lodge. He was very low,
and in his bed, when I got there, and complained of a great pain about
his heart, but I guessed it was only trouble, and all the business, let
alone vexation, he had gone through of late; and knowing the nature of
him from a boy, I took my pipe, and, whilst smoking it by the chimney,
began telling him how he was beloved and regretted in the county, and it
did him a deal of good to hear it. “Your honour has a great many friends
yet, that you don’t know of, rich and poor, in the county,” says I;
“for as I was coming along the road, I met two gentlemen in their own
carriages, who asked after you, knowing me, and wanted to know where you
was and all about you, and even how old I was: think of that.” Then
he wakened out of his doze, and began questioning me who the gentlemen
were. And the next morning it came into my head to go, unknown to any
body, with my master’s compliments, round to many of the gentlemen’s
houses, where he and my lady used to visit, and people that I knew were
his great friends, and would go to Cork to serve him any day in the
year, and I made bold to try to borrow a trifle of cash from them. They
all treated me very civil for the most part, and asked a great many
questions very kind about my lady, and Sir Condy, and all the family,
and were greatly surprised to learn from me Castle Rackrent was sold,
and my master at the Lodge for health; and they all pitied him greatly,
and he had their good wishes, if that would do, but money was a thing
they unfortunately had not any of them at this time to spare. I had
my journey for my pains, and I, not used to walking, nor supple as
formerly, was greatly tired, but had the satisfaction of telling my
master, when I got to the Lodge, all the civil things said by high and
low.

“Thady,” says he, “all you’ve been telling me brings a strange thought
into my head: I’ve a notion I shall not be long for this world any how,
and I’ve a great fancy to see my own funeral afore I die.” I was greatly
shocked, at the first speaking, to hear him speak so light about his
funeral, and he, to all appearance, in good health, but recollecting
myself, answered, “To be sure, it would be as fine a sight as one could
see, I dared to say, and one I should be proud to witness, and I did
not doubt his honour’s would be as great a funeral as ever Sir Patrick
O’Shaughlin’s was, and such a one as that had never been known in the
county afore or since.” But I never thought he was in earnest about
seeing his own funeral himself, till the next day he returns to it
again. “Thady,” says he, “as far as the wake[18] goes, sure I might
without any great trouble have the satisfaction of seeing a bit of my
own funeral.” “Well, since your honour’s honour’s so bent upon it,” says
I, not willing to cross him, and he in trouble, “we must see what we can
do.” So he fell into a sort of a sham disorder, which was easy done, as
he kept his bed, and no one to see him; and I got my shister, who was an
old woman very handy about the sick, and very skilful, to come up to the
Lodge to nurse him; and we gave out, she knowing no better, that he was
just at his latter end, and it answered beyond any thing; and there was
a great throng of people, men, women, and childer, and there being
only two rooms at the Lodge, except what was locked up full of Jason’s
furniture and things, the house was soon as full and fuller than it
could hold, and the heat, and smoke, and noise wonderful great; and
standing amongst them that were near the bed, but not thinking at all of
the dead, I was started by the sound of my master’s voice from under the
great coats that had been thrown all at top, and I went close up, no one
noticing. “Thady,” says he, “I’ve had enough of this; I’m smothering,
and can’t hear a word of all they’re saying of the deceased.” “God bless
you, and lie still and quiet,” says I, “a bit longer, for my shister’s
afraid of ghosts, and would die on the spot with fright, was she to
see you come to life all on a sudden this way without the least
preparation.” So he lays him still, though well nigh stifled, and I made
all haste to tell the secret of the joke, whispering to one and t’other,
and there was a great surprise, but not so great as we had laid out it
would. “And aren’t we to have the pipes and tobacco, after coming so
far to-night?” said some; but they were all well enough pleased when
his honour got up to drink with them, and sent for more spirits from a
shebean-house,[19] where they very civilly let him have it upon credit.
So the night passed off very merrily, but, to my mind, Sir Condy was
rather upon the sad order in the midst of it all, not finding there had
been such a great talk about himself after his death as he had always
expected to hear.

The next morning when the house was cleared of them, and none but my
shister and myself left in the kitchen with Sir Condy, one opens the
door, and walks in, and who should it be but Judy M’Quirk herself! I
forgot to notice, that she had been married long since, whilst young
Captain Moneygawl lived at the Lodge, to the captain’s huntsman, who
after a whilst listed and left her, and was killed in the wars. Poor
Judy fell off greatly in her good looks after her being married a year
or two; and being smoke-dried in the cabin, and neglecting herself like,
it was hard for Sir Condy himself to know her again till she spoke;
but when she says, “It’s Judy M’Quirk, please your honour, don’t you
remember her?” “Oh, Judy, is it you?” says his honour; “yes, sure, I
remember you very well; but you’re greatly altered, Judy.” “Sure it’s
time for me,” says she; “and I think your honour, since I _seen_ you
last,--but that’s a great while ago,--is altered too.” “And with reason,
Judy,” says Sir Condy, fetching a sort of a sigh; “but how’s this,
Judy?” he goes on; “I take it a little amiss of you, that you were not
at my wake last night.” “Ah, don’t be being jealous of that,” says she;
“I didn’t hear a sentence of your honour’s wake till it was all over, or
it would have gone hard with me but I would have been at it sure; but I
was forced to go ten miles up the country three days ago to a wedding
of a relation of my own’s, and didn’t get home till after the wake was
over; but,” says she, “it won’t be so, I hope, the next time,[20] please
your honour.” “That we shall see, Judy,” says his honour, “and may be
sooner than you think for, for I’ve been very unwell this while past,
and don’t reckon any way I’m long for this world.” At this, Judy takes
up the corner of her apron, and puts it first to one eye and then to
t’other, being to all appearance in great trouble; and my shister put in
her word, and bid his honour have a good heart, for she was sure it was
only the gout that Sir Patrick used to have flying about him, and he
ought to drink a glass or a bottle extraordinary to keep it out of
his stomach; and he promised to take her advice, and sent out for more
spirits immediately; and Judy made a sign to me, and I went over to the
door to her, and she said, “I wonder to see Sir Condy so low! has he
heard the news?” “What news?” says I. “Didn’t ye hear it, then?” says
she; “my Lady Rackrent that was is kilt[D2] and lying for dead, and I
don’t doubt but it’s all over with her by this time.” “Mercy on us all,”
 says I; “how was it?” “The jaunting car it was that ran away with her,”
 says Judy. “I was coming home that same time from Biddy M’Guggin’s
marriage, and a great crowd of people too upon the road, coming from
the fair of Crookaghnawaturgh, and I sees a jaunting car standing in
the middle of the road, and with the two wheels off and all tattered.
‘What’s this?’ says I. ‘Didn’t ye hear of it?’ says they that were
looking on; ‘it’s my Lady Rackrent’s car, that was running away from
her husband, and the horse took fright at a carrion that lay across the
road, and so ran away with the jaunting car, and my Lady Rackrent and
her maid screaming, and the horse ran with them against a car that
was coming from the fair, with the boy asleep on it, and the lady’s
petticoat hanging out of the jaunting car caught, and she was dragged
I can’t tell you how far upon the road, and it all broken up with the
stones just going to be pounded, and one of the road-makers, with his
sledge-hammer in his hand, stops the horse at the last; but my Lady
Rackrent was all kilt[21] and smashed, and they lifted her into a cabin
hard by, and the maid was found after, where she had been thrown, in the
gripe of the ditch, her cap and bonnet all full of bog water, and they
say my lady can’t live any way.’ Thady, pray now is it true what I’m
told for sartain, that Sir Condy has made over all to your son Jason?”
 “All,” says I. “All entirely?” says she again. “All entirely,” says I.
“Then,” says she, “that’s a great shame, but don’t be telling Jason what
I say.” “And what is it you say?” cries Sir Condy, leaning over betwixt
us, which made Judy start greatly. “I know the time when Judy M’Quirk
would never have stayed so long talking at the door, and I in the
house.” “Oh!” says Judy, “for shame, Sir Condy; times are altered since
then, and it’s my Lady Rackrent you ought to be thinking of.” “And why
should I be thinking of her, that’s not thinking of me now?” said Sir
Condy. “No matter for that,” says Judy, very properly; “it’s time you
should be thinking of her, if ever you mean to do it at all, for don’t
you know she’s lying for death?” “My Lady Rackrent!” says Sir Condy,
in a surprise; “why it’s but two days since we parted, as you very well
know, Thady, in her full health and spirits, and she and her maid along
with her going to Mount Juliet’s Town on her jaunting car.” “She’ll
never ride no more on her jaunting car,” said Judy, “for it has been the
death of her, sure enough.” “And is she dead then?” says his honour.
“As good as dead, I hear,” says Judy; “but there’s Thady here has just
learnt the whole truth of the story as I had it, and it is fitter he
or any body else should be telling it you than I, Sir Condy: I must be
going home to the childer.” But he stops her, but rather from civility
in him, as I could see very plainly, than any thing else, for Judy was,
as his honour remarked at her first coming in, greatly changed, and
little likely, as far as I could see--though she did not seem to be
clear of it herself--little likely to be my Lady Rackrent now, should
there be a second toss-up to be made. But I told him the whole story out
of the face, just as Judy had told it to me, and he sent off a messenger
with his compliments to Mount Juliet’s Town that evening, to learn the
truth of the report, and Judy bid the boy that was going call in at Tim
M’Enerney’s shop in O’Shaughlin’s Town and buy her a new shawl. “Do so,”
 said Sir Condy, “and tell Tim to take no money from you, for I must pay
him for the shawl myself.” At this my shister throws me over a look, and
I says nothing, but turned the tobacco in my mouth, whilst Judy began
making a many words about it, and saying how she could not be beholden
for shawls to any gentleman. I left her there to consult with my
shister, did she think there was any thing in it, and my shister thought
I was blind to be asking her the question, and I thought my shister must
see more into it than I did; and recollecting all past times and every
thing, I changed my mind, and came over to her way of thinking, and we
settled it that Judy was very like to be my Lady Rackrent after all, if
a vacancy should have happened.

The next day, before his honour was up, somebody comes with a double
knock at the door, and I was greatly surprised to see it was my son
Jason. “Jason, is it you?” said I; “what brings you to the Lodge?” says
I; “is it my Lady Rackrent? we know that already since yesterday.” “May
be so,” says he, “but I must see Sir Condy about it.” “You can’t see him
yet,” says I; “sure he is not awake.” “What then,” says he, “can’t he be
wakened? and I standing at the door.” “I’ll not be disturbing his honour
for you, Jason,” says I; “many’s the hour you’ve waited in your time,
and been proud to do it, till his honour was at leisure to speak to you.
His honour,” says I, raising my voice, at which his honour wakens of
his own accord, and calls to me from the room to know who it was I was
speaking to. Jason made no more ceremony, but follows me into the room.
“How are you, Sir Condy?” says he; “I’m happy to see you looking so
well; I came up to know how you did to-day, and to see did you want for
any thing at the Lodge.” “Nothing at all, Mr. Jason, I thank you,” says
he; for his honour had his own share of pride, and did not choose, after
all that had passed, to be beholden, I suppose, to my son; “but pray
take a chair and be seated, Mr. Jason.” Jason sat him down upon the
chest, for chair there was none, and after he had set there some time,
and a silence on all sides, “What news is there stirring in the country,
Mr. Jason M’Quirk?” says Sir Condy, very easy, yet high like. “None
that’s news to you, Sir Condy, I hear,” says Jason: “I am sorry to hear
of my Lady Rackrent’s accident.” “I’m much obliged to you, and so is
her ladyship, I’m sure,” answered Sir Condy, still stiff; and there was
another sort of a silence, which seemed to lie the heaviest on my son
Jason.

“Sir Condy,” says he at last, seeing Sir Condy disposing himself to go
to sleep again, “Sir Condy, I dare say you recollect mentioning to me
the little memorandum you gave to Lady Rackrent about the 500_l_. a-year
jointure.” “Very true,” said Sir Condy; “it is all in my recollection.”
 “But if my Lady Rackrent dies, there’s an end of all jointure,” says
Jason. “Of course,” says Sir Condy. “But it’s not a matter of certainty
that my Lady Rackrent won’t recover,” says Jason. “Very true, sir,” says
my master. “It’s a fair speculation, then, for you to consider what the
chance of the jointure on those lands, when out of custodiam, will be to
you.” “Just five hundred a-year, I take it, without any speculation
at all,” said Sir Condy. “That’s supposing the life dropt, and the
custodiam off, you know; begging your pardon, Sir Condy, who understands
business, that is a wrong calculation.” “Very likely so,” said Sir
Condy; “but Mr. Jason, if you have any thing to say to me this morning
about it, I’d be obliged to you to say it, for I had an indifferent
night’s rest last night, and wouldn’t be sorry to sleep a little this
morning.” “I have only three words to say, and those more of consequence
to you, Sir Condy, than me. You are a little cool, I observe; but I hope
you will not be offended at what I have brought here in my pocket,” and
he pulls out two long rolls, and showers down golden guineas upon the
bed. “What’s this?” said Sir Condy; “it’s long since”--but his pride
stops him, “All these are your lawful property this minute, Sir Condy,
if you please,” said Jason. “Not for nothing, I’m sure,” said Sir Condy,
and laughs a little--“nothing for nothing, or I’m under a mistake with
you, Jason.” “Oh, Sir Condy, we’ll not be indulging ourselves in any
unpleasant retrospects,” says Jason; “it’s my present intention to
behave, as I’m sure you will, like a gentleman in this affair. Here’s
two hundred guineas, and a third I mean to add, if you should think
proper to make over to me all your right and title to those lands that
you know of.” “I’ll consider of it,” said my master; and a great deal
more, that I was tired listening to, was said by Jason, and all that,
and the sight of the ready cash upon the bed worked with his honour;
and the short and the long of it was, Sir Condy gathered up the golden
guineas, and tied them up in a handkerchief, and signed some paper Jason
brought with him as usual, and there was an end of the business: Jason
took himself away, and my master turned himself round and fell asleep
again.

I soon found what had put Jason in such a hurry to conclude this
business. The little gossoon we had sent off the day before with my
master’s compliments to Mount Juliet’s Town, and to know how my lady did
after her accident, was stopped early this morning, coming back with his
answer through O’Shaughlin’s Town, at Castle Rackrent, by my son Jason,
and questioned of all he knew of my lady from the servant at Mount
Juliet’s Town; and the gossoon told him my Lady Rackrent was not
expected to live over night; so Jason thought it high time to be moving
to the Lodge, to make his bargain with my master about the jointure
afore it should be too late, and afore the little gossoon should reach
us with the news. My master was greatly vexed, that is, I may say, as
much as ever I _seen_ him, when he found how he had been taken in; but
it was some comfort to have the ready cash for immediate consumption in
the house, any way.

And when Judy came up that evening, and brought the childer to see his
honour, he unties the handkerchief, and, God bless him! whether it was
little or much he had, ‘twas all the same with him, he gives ‘em all
round guineas a-piece. “Hold up your head,” says my shister to Judy,
as Sir Condy was busy filling out a glass of punch for her eldest
boy--“Hold up your head, Judy; for who knows but we may live to see you
yet at the head of the Castle Rackrent estate?” “Maybe so,” says she,
“but not the way you are thinking of.” I did not rightly understand
which way Judy, was looking when she makes this speech, till a-while
after. “Why, Thady, you were telling me yesterday, that Sir Condy had
sold all entirely to Jason, and where then does all them guineas in
the handkerchief come from?” “They are the purchase-money of my lady’s
jointure,” says I. Judy looks a little bit puzzled at this. “A penny for
your thoughts, Judy,” says my shister; “hark, sure Sir Condy is drinking
her health.” He was at the table in _the room_,[22] drinking with the
exciseman and the gauger, who came up to see his honour, and we were
standing over the fire in the kitchen. “I don’t much care is he drinking
my health or not,” says Judy; “and it is not Sir Condy I’m thinking of,
with all your jokes, whatever he is of me.” “Sure you wouldn’t refuse
to be my Lady Rackrent, Judy, if you had the offer?” says I. “But if I
could do better!” says she. “How better?” says I and my shister both
at once. “How better?” says she; “why, what signifies it to be my Lady
Rackrent, and no castle? sure what good is the car, and no horse to draw
it?” “And where will ye get the horse, Judy?” says I. “Never mind that,”
 says she; “may be it is your own son Jason might find that.” “Jason!”
 says I; “don’t be trusting to him, Judy. Sir Condy, as I have good
reason to know, spoke well of you, when Jason spoke very indifferently
of you, Judy.” “No matter,” says Judy; “it’s often men speak the
contrary just to what they think of us.” “And you the same way of them,
no doubt,” answers I. “Nay, don’t be denying it, Judy, for I think the
better of ye for it, and shouldn’t be proud to call ye the daughter of a
shister’s son of mine, if I was to hear ye talk ungrateful, and any way
disrespectful of his honour.” “What disrespect,” says she, “to say I’d
rather, if it was my luck, be the wife of another man?” “You’ll have no
luck, mind my words, Judy,” says I; and all I remembered about my poor
master’s goodness in tossing up for her afore he married at all came
across me, and I had a choaking in my throat that hindered me to say
more. “Better luck, any how, Thady,” says she, “than to be like some
folk, following the fortunes of them that have none left.” “Oh! King of
Glory!” says I, “hear the pride and ungratitude of her, and he giving
his last guineas but a minute ago to her childer, and she with the fine
shawl on her he made her a present of but yesterday!” “Oh, troth, Judy,
you’re wrong now,” says my shister, looking at the shawl. “And was not
he wrong yesterday, then,” says she, “to be telling me I was greatly
altered, to affront me?” “But, Judy,” says I, “what is it brings you
here then at all in the mind you are in; is it to make Jason think the
better of you?” “I’ll tell you no more of my secrets, Thady,” says
she, “nor would have told you this much, had I taken you for such an
unnatural fader as I find you are, not to wish your own son prefarred
to another.” “Oh, troth, _you_ are wrong now, Thady,” says my shister.
Well, I was never so put to it in my life: between these womens, and
my son and my master, and all I felt and thought just now, I could not,
upon my conscience, tell which was the wrong from the right. So I said
not a word more, but was only glad his honour had not the luck to hear
all Judy had been saying of him, for I reckoned it would have gone nigh
to break his heart; not that I was of opinion he cared for her as much
as she and my shister fancied, but the ungratitude of the whole from
Judy might not plase him; and he could never stand the notion of not
being well spoken of or beloved like behind his back. Fortunately for
all parties concerned, he was so much elevated at this time, there was
no danger of his understanding any thing, even if it had reached his
ears. There was a great horn at the Lodge, ever since my master and
Captain Moneygawl was in together, that used to belong originally to the
celebrated Sir Patrick, his ancestor; and his honour was fond often of
telling the story that he learned from me when a child, how Sir Patrick
drank the full of this horn without stopping, and this was what no
other man afore or since could without drawing breath. Now Sir Condy
challenged the gauger, who seemed to think little of the horn, to
swallow the contents, and had it filled to the brim with punch; and the
gauger said it was what he could not do for nothing, but he’d hold Sir
Condy a hundred guineas he’d do it. “Done,” says my master; “I’ll lay
you a hundred golden guineas to a tester[23] you don’t.” “Done,” says
the gauger; and done and done’s enough between two gentlemen. The gauger
was cast, and my master won the bet, and thought he’d won a hundred
guineas, but by the wording it was adjudged to be only a tester that was
his due by the exciseman. It was all one to him; he was as well pleased,
and I was glad to see him in such spirits again.

The gauger, bad luck to him! was the man that next proposed to my master
to try himself could he take at a draught the contents of the great
horn. “Sir Patrick’s horn!” said his honour; “hand it to me: I’ll hold
you your own bet over again I’ll swallow it.” “Done,” says the gauger;
“I’ll lay ye anything at all you do no such thing.” “A hundred guineas
to sixpence I do,” says he: “bring me the handkerchief.” I was loth,
knowing he meant the handkerchief with the gold in it, to bring it out
in such company, and his honour not very able to reckon it. “Bring me
the handkerchief, then, Thady,” says he, and stamps with his foot; so
with that I pulls it out of my great coat pocket, where I had put it
for safety. Oh, how it grieved me to see the guineas counting upon the
table, and they the last my master had! Says Sir Condy to me, “Your hand
is steadier than mine to-night, old Thady, and that’s a wonder; fill
you the horn for me.” And so, wishing his honour success, I did; but
I filled it, little thinking of what would befall him. He swallows it
down, and drops like one shot. We lifts him up, and he was speechless,
and quite black in the face. We put him to bed, and in a short time he
wakened, raving with a fever on his brain. He was shocking either to see
or hear. “Judy! Judy! have you no touch of feeling? won’t you stay to
help us nurse him?” says I to her, and she putting on her shawl to go
out of the house. “I’m frightened to see him,” says she, “and wouldn’t
nor couldn’t stay in it; and what use? he can’t last till the morning.”
 With that she ran off. There was none but my shister and myself left
near him of all the many friends he had. The fever came and went, and
came and went, and lasted five days, and the sixth he was sensible for a
few minutes, and said to me, knowing me very well, “I’m in burning pain
all withinside of me, Thady.” I could not speak, but my shister asked
him would he have this thing or t’other to do him good? “No,” says he,
“nothing will do me good no more,” and he gave a terrible screech with
the torture he was in--then again a minute’s ease--“brought to this by
drink,” says he; “where are all the friends?--where’s Judy?--Gone, hey?
Ay, Sir Condy has been a fool all his days,” said he; and there was the
last word he spoke, and died. He had but a very poor funeral, after all.

If you want to know any more, I’m not very well able to tell you; but
my Lady Rackrent did not die, as was expected of her, but was only
disfigured in the face ever after by the fall and bruises she got; and
she and Jason, immediately after my poor master’s death, set about going
to law about that jointure; the memorandum not being on stamped paper,
some say it is worth nothing, others again it may do; others say, Jason
won’t have the lands at any rate; many wishes it so: for my part,
I’m tired wishing for any thing in this world, after all I’ve seen
in it--but I’ll say nothing; it would be a folly to be getting myself
ill-will in my old age. Jason did not marry, nor think of marrying Judy,
as I prophesied, and I am not sorry for it; who is? As for all I have
here set down from memory and hearsay of the family, there’s nothing but
truth in it from beginning to end: that you may depend upon; for where’s
the use of telling lies about the things which every body knows as well
as I do?

       *       *       *       *       *

The Editor could have readily made the catastrophe of Sir Condy’s
history more dramatic and more pathetic, if he thought it allowable to
varnish the plain round tale of faithful Thady. He lays it before the
English reader as a specimen of manners and characters, which are,
perhaps, unknown in England. Indeed, the domestic habits of no nation
in Europe were less known to the English than those of their sister
country, till within these few years.

Mr. Young’s picture of Ireland, in his tour through that country, was
the first faithful portrait of its inhabitants. All the features in the
foregoing sketch were taken from the life, and they are characteristic
of that mixture of quickness, simplicity, cunning, carelessness,
dissipation, disinterestedness, shrewdness, and blunder, which, in
different forms, and with various success, has been brought upon the
stage, or delineated in novels.

It is a problem of difficult solution to determine, whether an Union
will hasten or retard the amelioration of this country. The few
gentlemen of education, who now reside in this country, will resort to
England: they are few, but they are in nothing inferior to men of
the same rank in Great Britain. The best that can happen will be the
introduction of British manufacturers in their places.

Did the Warwickshire militia, who were chiefly artisans, teach the Irish
to drink beer? or did they learn from the Irish to drink whiskey?

1800.




GLOSSARY.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Some friends, who have seen Thady’s history since it has been printed,
have suggested to the Editor, that many of the terms and idiomatic
phrases, with which it abounds, could not be intelligible to the English
reader without further explanation. The Editor has therefore furnished
the following Glossary_.

       *       *       *       *       *

[A] _Monday morning_,--Thady begins his memoirs of the Rackrent
Family by dating _Monday morning_, because no great undertaking can be
auspiciously commenced in Ireland on any morning but _Monday morning_.
“Oh, please God we live till Monday morning, we’ll set the slater to
mend the roof of the house. On Monday morning we’ll fall to, and cut the
turf. On Monday morning we’ll see and begin mowing. On Monday morning,
please your honour, we’ll begin and dig the potatoes,” &c.

All the intermediate days, between the making of such speeches and the
ensuing Monday, are wasted: and when Monday morning comes, it is ten
to one that the business is deferred to _the next_ Monday morning. The
Editor knew a gentleman, who, to counteract this prejudice, made his
workmen and labourers begin all new pieces of work upon a Saturday.

[B] _Let alone the three kingdoms itself._--_Let alone_, in this
sentence, means _put out of consideration_. The phrase, _let alone_,
which is now used as the imperative of a verb, may in time become a
conjunction, and may exercise the ingenuity of some future etymologist.
The celebrated Horne Tooke has proved most satisfactorily, that the
conjunction _but_ comes from the imperative of the Anglo-Saxon verb
_(beoutan) to be out_; also, that _if_ comes from _gif_, the imperative
of the Anglo-Saxon verb which signifies _to give_, &c.

[C] _Whillaluh_.--Ullaloo, Gol, or lamentation over the dead--

    “Magnoque ululante tumultu.”--VIRGIL.

                “Ululatibus omne
    Implevere nemus.”--OVID.

A full account of the Irish Gol, or Ullaloo, and of the Caoinan or Irish
funeral song, with its first semichorus, second semichorus, full chorus
of sighs and groans, together with the Irish words and music, may
be found in the fourth volume of the transactions of the Royal Irish
Academy. For the advantage of _lazy_ readers, who would rather read a
page than walk a yard, and from compassion, not to say sympathy, with
their infirmity, the Editor transcribes the following passages:

“The Irish have been always remarkable for their funeral lamentations;
and this peculiarity has been noticed by almost every traveller who
visited them; and it seems derived from their Celtic ancestors, the
primaeval inhabitants of this isle ... ...

“It has been affirmed of the Irish, that to cry was more natural to
them than to any other nation, and at length the Irish cry became
proverbial.... ... ...

“Cambrensis in the twelfth century says, the Irish then musically
expressed their griefs; that is, they applied the musical art, in
which they excelled all others, to the orderly celebration of funeral
obsequies, by dividing the mourners into two bodies, each alternately
singing their part, and the whole at times joining in full chorus....
... The body of the deceased, dressed in grave clothes, and ornamented
with flowers, was placed on a bier, or some elevated spot. The relations
and keepers (_singing mourners_) ranged themselves in two divisions,
one at the head, and the other at the feet of the corpse. The bards and
croteries had before prepared the funeral Caoinan. The chief bard of the
head chorus began by singing the first stanza, in a low, doleful tone,
which was softly accompanied by the harp: at the conclusion, the foot
semichorus began the lamentation, or Ullaloo, from the final note of the
preceding stanza, in which they were answered by the head semichorus;
then both united in one general chorus. The chorus of the first stanza
being ended, the chief bard of the foot semichorus began the second Gol
or lamentation, in which he was answered by that of the head; and then,
as before, both united in the general full chorus. Thus alternately were
the song and choruses performed during the night. The genealogy, rank,
possessions, the virtues and vices of the dead were rehearsed, and a
number of interrogations were addressed to the deceased; as, Why did he
die? If married, whether his wife was faithful to him, his sons dutiful,
or good hunters or warriors? If a woman, whether her daughters were fair
or chaste? If a young man, whether he had been crossed in love; or if
the blue-eyed maids of Erin treated him with scorn?”

We are told, that formerly the feet (the metrical feet) of the Caoinan
were much attended to; but on the decline of the Irish bards these feet
were gradually neglected, and the Caoinan fell into a sort of slipshod
metre amongst women. Each province had different Caoinans, or at least
different imitations of the original. There was the Munster cry, the
Ulster cry, &c. It became an extempore performance, and every set of
keepers varied the melody according to their own fancy.

It is curious to observe how customs and ceremonies degenerate. The
present Irish cry, or howl, cannot boast of such melody, nor is the
funeral procession conducted with much dignity. The crowd of people who
assemble at these funerals sometimes amounts to a thousand, often to
four or five hundred. They gather as the bearers of the hearse proceed
on their way, and when they pass through any village, or when they
come near any houses, they begin to cry--Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Agh! Agh!
raising their notes from the first _Oh!_ to the last _Agh!_ in a kind of
mournful howl. This gives notice to the inhabitants of the village that
_a funeral is passing_, and immediately they flock out to follow it. In
the province of Munster it is a common thing for the women to follow a
funeral, to join in the universal cry with all their might and main for
some time, and then to turn and ask--“Arrah! who is it that’s dead?--who
is it we’re crying for?” Even the poorest people have their own
burying-places, that is, spots of ground in the church-yards where
they say that their ancestors have been buried ever since the wars of
Ireland; and if these burial-places are ten miles from the place where
a man dies, his friends and neighbours take care to carry his corpse
thither. Always one priest, often five or six priests, attend these
funerals; each priest repeats a mass, for which he is paid, sometimes a
shilling, sometimes half-a-crown, sometimes half-a-guinea, or a guinea,
according to their circumstances, or, as they say, according to the
_ability_ of the deceased. After the burial of any very poor man,
who has left a widow or children, the priest makes what is called _a
collection_ for the widow; he goes round to every person present, and
each contributes sixpence or a shilling, or what they please. The reader
will find in the note upon the word _Wake_, more particulars respecting
the conclusion of the Irish funerals.

Certain old women, who cry particularly loud and well, are in great
request, and, as a man said to the Editor, “Every one would wish and be
proud to have such at his funeral, or at that of his friends.” The lower
Irish are wonderfully eager to attend the funerals of their friends
and relations, and they make their relationships branch out to a great
extent. The proof that a poor man has been well beloved during his life
is his having a crowded funeral. To attend a neighbour’s funeral is a
cheap proof of humanity, but it does not, as some imagine, cost nothing.
The time spent in attending funerals may be safely valued at half a
million to the Irish nation; the Editor thinks that double that
sum would not be too high an estimate. The habits of profligacy and
drunkenness which are acquired at _wakes_, are here put out of the
question. When a labourer, a carpenter, or a smith, is not at his work,
which frequently happens, ask where he is gone, and ten to one the
answer is--“Oh, faith, please your honour, he couldn’t do a stroke
to-day, for he’s gone to _the_ funeral.”

Even beggars, when they grow old, go about begging _for their own
funerals_; that is, begging for money to buy a coffin, candles, pipes,
and tobacco. For the use of the candles, pipes, and tobacco, see _Wake_.

Those who value customs in proportion to their antiquity, and nations in
proportion to their adherence to ancient customs, will doubtless, admire
the Irish _Ullaloo_, and the Irish nation, for persevering in this usage
from time immemorial. The Editor, however, has observed some alarming
symptoms, which seem to prognosticate the declining taste for the
Ullaloo in Ireland. In a comic theatrical entertainment, represented not
long since on the Dublin stage, a chorus of old women was introduced,
who set up the Irish howl round the relics of a physician, who is
supposed to have fallen under the wooden sword of Harlequin. After the
old women have continued their Ullaloo for a decent time, with all the
necessary accompaniments of wringing their hands, wiping or rubbing
their eyes with the corners of their gowns or aprons, &c. one of the
mourners suddenly suspends her lamentable cries, and, turning to her
neighbour, asks, “Arrah now, honey, who is it we’re crying for?”

[D] _The tenants were sent away without their whiskey._--It is usual
with some landlords to give their inferior tenants a glass of whiskey
when they pay their rents. Thady calls it _their_ whiskey; not that the
whiskey is actually the property of the tenants, but that it becomes
their _right_ after it has been often given to them. In this general
mode of reasoning respecting _rights_ the lower Irish are not singular,
but they are peculiarly quick and tenacious in claiming these rights.
“Last year your honour gave me some straw for the roof of my house and
I _expect_ your honour will be after doing the same this year.” In this
manner gifts are frequently turned into tributes. The high and low are
not always dissimilar in their habits. It is said, that the Sublime
Ottoman Porte is very apt to claim gifts as tributes: thus it is
dangerous to send the Grand Seignor a fine horse on his birthday one
year, lest on his next birthday he should expect a similar present, and
should proceed to demonstrate the reasonableness of his expectations.

[E] _He demeaned himself greatly_--means, he lowered or disgraced
himself much.

[F] _Duty fowls, duty turkeys, and duty geese_.--In many leases in
Ireland, tenants were _formerly_ bound to supply an inordinate quantity
of poultry to their landlords. The Editor knew of thirty turkeys being
reserved in one lease of a small farm.

[G] _English tenants_.--An English tenant does not mean a tenant who is
an Englishman, but a tenant who pays his rent the day that it is due. It
is a common prejudice in Ireland, amongst the poorer classes of people,
to believe that all tenants in England pay their rents on the very day
when they become due. An Irishman, when he goes to take a farm, if he
wants to prove to his landlord that he is a substantial man, offers
to become an _English tenant_. If a tenant disobliges his landlord by
voting against him, or against his opinion, at an election, the tenant
is immediately informed by the agent, that he must become an _English
tenant_. This threat does not imply that he is to change his language or
his country, but that he must pay all the arrear of rent which he owes,
and that he must thenceforward pay his rent on that day when it becomes
due.

[H] _Canting_--does not mean talking or writing hypocritical nonsense,
but selling substantially by auction.

[I] _Duty work_.--It was formerly common in Ireland to insert clauses
in leases, binding tenants to furnish their landlords with labourers and
horses for several days in the year. Much petty tyranny and oppression
have resulted from this feudal custom. Whenever a poor man disobliged
his landlord, the agent sent to him for his duty work; and Thady does
not exaggerate when he says, that the tenants were often called from
their own work to do that of their landlord. Thus the very means of
earning their rent were taken from them: whilst they were getting home
their landlord’s harvest, their own was often ruined, and yet their
rents were expected to be paid as punctually as if their time had been
at their own disposal. This appears the height of absurd injustice.

In Esthonia, amongst the poor Sclavonian race of peasant slaves, they
pay tributes to their lords, not under the name of duty work, duty
geese, duty turkeys, &c., but under the name of _righteousnesses_. The
following ballad is a curious specimen of Esthonian poetry:--

    “This is the cause that the country is ruined,
    And the straw of the thatch is eaten away,
    The gentry are come to live in the land--
    Chimneys between the village,
    And the proprietor upon the white floor!
    The sheep brings forth a lamb with a white forehead,
    This is paid to the lord for a _righteousness sheep_.
    The sow farrows pigs,
    They go to the spit of the lord.
    The hen lays eggs,
    They go into the lord’s frying-pan.
    The cow drops a male calf,
    That goes into the lord’s herd as a bull.
    The mare foals a horse foal,
    That must be for my lord’s nag.
    The boor’s wife has sons,
    They must go to look after my lord’s poultry.”

[J] _Out of forty-nine suits which he had, he never lost one but
seventeen_,--Thady’s language in this instance is a specimen of a mode
of rhetoric common in Ireland. An astonishing assertion is made in the
beginning of a sentence, which ceases to be in the least surprising,
when you hear the qualifying explanation that follows. Thus a man who is
in the last stage of staggering drunkenness will, if he can articulate,
swear to you--“Upon his conscience now, and may he never stir from the
spot alive if he is telling a lie, upon his conscience he has not tasted
a drop of any thing, good or bad, since morning at-all-at-all, but half
a pint of whiskey, please your honour.”

[K] _Fairy Mounts_--Barrows. It is said that these high mounts were of
great service to the natives of Ireland when Ireland was invaded by the
Danes. Watch was always kept on them, and upon the approach of an
enemy a fire was lighted to give notice to the next watch, and thus the
intelligence was quickly communicated through the country. _Some years
ago_, the common people believed that these barrows were inhabited by
fairies, or, as they called them, by the _good people_. “Oh, troth, to
the best of my belief, and to the best of my judgment and opinion,”
 said an elderly man to the Editor, “it was only the old people that had
nothing to do, and got together, and were telling stories about them
fairies, but to the best of my judgment there’s nothing in it. Only this
I heard myself not very many years hack from a decent kind of a man, a
grazier, that as he was coming just _fair and easy (quietly)_ from the
fair, with some cattle and sheep, that he had not sold, just at
the church of ----, at an angle of the road like, he was met by a
good-looking man, who asked him where he was going? And he answered,
‘Oh, far enough, I must be going all night.’ ‘No, that you mustn’t nor
won’t (says the man), you’ll sleep with me the night, and you’ll
want for nothing, nor your cattle nor sheep neither, nor your _beast
(horse)_; so come along with me.’ With that the grazier _lit (alighted)_
from his horse, and it was dark night; but presently he finds himself,
he does not know in the wide world how, in a fine house, and plenty of
every thing to eat and drink; nothing at all wanting that he could wish
for or think of. And he does not _mind (recollect_ or _know_) how at
last he falls asleep; and in the morning he finds himself lying, not in
ever a bed or a house at all, but just in the angle of the road where
first he met the strange man: there he finds himself lying on his back
on the grass, and all his sheep feeding as quiet as ever all round about
him, and his horse the same way, and the bridle of the beast over his
wrist. And I asked him what he thought of it; and from first to last
he could think of nothing, but for certain sure it must have been the
fairies that entertained him so well. For there was no house to see any
where nigh hand, or any building, or barn, or place at all, but only the
church and the _mote (barrow)_. There’s another odd thing enough that
they tell about this same church, that if any person’s corpse, that had
not a right to be buried in that church-yard, went to be burying there
in it, no, not all the men, women, or childer in all Ireland could get
the corpse any way into the church-yard; but as they would be trying
to go into the church-yard, their feet would seem to be going backwards
instead of forwards; ay, continually backwards the whole funeral
would seem to go; and they would never set foot with the corpse in the
church-yard. Now they say that it is the fairies do all this; but it is
my opinion it is all idle talk, and people are after being wiser now.”

The country people in Ireland certainly _had_ great admiration mixed
with reverence, if not dread, of fairies. They believed that beneath
these fairy mounts were spacious subterraneous palaces, inhabited by
_the good people_, who must not on any account be disturbed. When the
wind raises a little eddy of dust upon the road, the poor people believe
that it is raised by the fairies, that it is a sign that they are
journeying from one of the fairies’ mounts to another, and they say to
the fairies, or to the dust as it passes, “God speed ye, gentlemen; God
speed ye.” This averts any evil that _the good people_ might be inclined
to do them. There are innumerable stories told of the friendly and
unfriendly feats of these busy fairies; some of these tales are
ludicrous, and some romantic enough for poetry. It is a pity that poets
should lose such convenient, though diminutive machinery. By-the-bye,
Parnell, who showed himself so deeply “skilled in faerie lore,” was an
Irishman; and though he has presented his fairies to the world in the
ancient English dress of “Britain’s isle, and Arthur’s days,” it is
probable that his first acquaintance with them began in his native
country.

Some remote origin for the most superstitious or romantic popular
illusions or vulgar errors may often be discovered. In Ireland, the old
churches and church-yards have been usually fixed upon as the scenes of
wonders. Now antiquaries tell us, that near the ancient churches in
that kingdom caves of various constructions have from time to time been
discovered, which were formerly used as granaries or magazines by the
ancient inhabitants, and as places to which they retreated in time
of danger. There is (p. 84 of the R.I.A. Transactions for 1789) a
particular account of a number of these artificial caves at the west
end of the church of Killossy, in the county of Kildare. Under a rising
ground, in a dry sandy soil, these subterraneous dwellings were found:
they have pediment roofs, and they communicate with each other by small
apertures. In the Brehon laws these are mentioned, and there are fines
inflicted by those laws upon persons who steal from the subterraneous
granaries. All these things show that there was a real foundation for
the stories which were told of the appearance of lights, and of the
sounds of voices, near these places. The persons who had property
concealed there, very willingly countenanced every wonderful relation
that tended to make these places objects of sacred awe or superstitious
terror.

[L] _Weed-ashes_.--By ancient usage in Ireland, all the weeds on a farm
belonged to the farmer’s wife, or to the wife of the squire who holds
the ground in his own hands. The great demand for alkaline salts in
bleaching rendered these ashes no inconsiderable perquisite.

[M] _Sealing money_.--Formerly it was the custom in Ireland for tenants
to give the squire’s lady from two to fifty guineas as a perquisite upon
the sealing of their leases. The Editor not very long since knew of a
baronet’s lady accepting fifty guineas as sealing money, upon closing a
bargain for a considerable farm.

[N] _Sir Murtagh grew mad_.--Sir Murtagh grew angry.

[O] _The whole kitchen was out on the stairs_--means that all the
inhabitants of the kitchen came out of the kitchen, and stood upon the
stairs. These, and similar expressions, show how much the Irish are
disposed to metaphor and amplification.

[P] _Fining down the year’s rent_.--When an Irish gentleman, like Sir
Kit Rackrent, has lived beyond his income, and finds himself distressed
for ready money, tenants obligingly offer to take his land at a rent far
below the value, and to pay him a small sum of money in hand, which
they call fining down the yearly rent. The temptation of this ready cash
often blinds the landlord to his future interest.

[Q] _Driver_.--A man who is employed to drive tenants for rent; that is,
to drive the cattle belonging to tenants to pound. The office of driver
is by no means a sinecure.

[R] _I thought to make him a priest_.--It was customary amongst those of
Thady’s rank in Ireland, whenever they could get a little money, to send
their sons abroad to St. Omer’s, or to Spain, to be educated as priests.
Now they are educated at Maynooth. The Editor has lately known a young
lad, who began by being a post-boy, afterwards turn into a carpenter,
then quit his plane and work-bench to study his _Humanities_, as he
said, at the college of Maynooth; but after he had gone through his
course of Humanities, he determined to be a soldier instead of a priest.

[S] _Flam_.--Short for flambeau.

[T] _Barrack-room_.--Formerly it was customary, in gentlemen’s houses
in Ireland, to fit up one large bedchamber with a number of beds for the
reception of occasional visitors. These rooms were called Barrack-rooms.

[U] _An innocent_--in Ireland, means a simpleton, an idiot.

[V] _The Curragh_--is the Newmarket of Ireland.

[X] _The cant_.--The auction.

[Y] _And so should cut him off for ever, by levying a fine, and
suffering a recovery to dock the entail_.--The English reader may
perhaps be surprised at the extent of Thady’s legal knowledge, and at
the fluency with which he pours forth law-terms; but almost every
poor man in Ireland, be he farmer, weaver, shopkeeper, or steward, is,
besides his other occupations, occasionally a lawyer. The nature of
processes, ejectments, custodiams, injunctions, replevins, &c. is
perfectly known to them, and the terms as familiar to them as to any
attorney. They all love law. It is a kind of lottery, in which every
man, staking his own wit or cunning against his neighbour’s property,
feels that he has little to lose, and much to gain.

“I’ll have the law of you, so I will!” is the saying of an Englishman
who expects justice. “I’ll have you before his honour,” is the threat of
an Irishman who hopes for partiality. Miserable is the life of a justice
of the peace in Ireland the day after a fair, especially if he resides
near a small town. The multitude of the _kilt_ (_kilt_ does not mean
_killed_, but hurt) and wounded who come before his honour with black
eyes or bloody heads is astonishing: but more astonishing is the number
of those who, though they are scarcely able by daily labour to procure
daily food, will nevertheless, without the least reluctance, waste six
or seven hours of the day lounging in the yard or court of a justice
of the peace, waiting to make some complaint about--nothing. It is
impossible to convince them that _time is money_. They do not set any
value upon their own time, and they think that others estimate theirs
at less than nothing. Hence they make no scruple of telling a justice of
the peace a story of an hour long about a _tester_ (sixpence); and if
he grows impatient, they attribute it to some secret prejudice which he
entertains against them.

Their method is to get a story completely by heart, and to tell it, as
they call it, _out of the face_, that is, from the beginning to the end,
without interruption.

“Well, my good friend, I have seen you lounging about these three hours
in the yard; what is your business?”

“Please your honour, it is what I want to speak one word to your
honour.”

“Speak then, but be quick--What is the matter?”

“The matter, please your honour, is nothing at-all-at-all, only just
about the grazing of a horse, please your honour, that this man here
sold me at the fair of Gurtishannon last Shrove fair, which lay down
three times with myself, please your honour, and _kilt_ me; not to be
telling your honour of how, no later back than yesterday night, he lay
down in the house there within, and all the childer standing round, and
it was God’s mercy he did not fall a-top of them, or into the fire to
burn himself. So please your honour, to-day I took him back to this man,
which owned him, and after a great deal to do, I got the mare again I
_swopped (exchanged)_ him for; but he won’t pay the grazing of the horse
for the time I had him, though he promised to pay the grazing in case
the horse didn’t answer; and he never did a day’s work, good or bad,
please your honour, all the time he was with me, and I had the doctor to
him five times any how. And so, please your honour, it is what I expect
your honour will stand my friend, for I’d sooner come to your honour
for justice than to any other in all Ireland. And so I brought him here
before your honour, and expect your honour will make him pay me the
grazing, or tell me, can I process him for it at the next assizes,
please your honour?”

The defendant now turning a quid of tobacco with his tongue into some
secret cavern in his mouth, begins his defence with--

“Please your honour, under favour, and saving your honour’s presence,
there’s not a word of truth in all this man has been saying from
beginning to end, upon my conscience, and I wouldn’t for the value of
the horse itself, grazing and all, be after telling your honour a lie.
For, please your honour, I have a dependence upon your honour that
you’ll do me justice, and not be listening to him or the like of him.
Please your honour, it’s what he has brought me before your honour,
because he had a spite against me about some oats I sold your honour,
which he was jealous of, and a shawl his wife got at my shister’s shop
there without, and never paid for; so I offered to set the shawl against
the grazing, and give him a receipt in full of all demands, but he
wouldn’t out of spite, please your honour; so he brought me before your
honour, expecting your honour was mad with me for cutting down the tree
in the horse park, which was none of my doing, please your honour--ill
luck to them that went and belied me to your honour behind my back!
So if your honour is pleasing, I’ll tell you the whole truth about the
horse that he swopped against my mare out of the face. Last Shrove fair
I met this man, Jemmy Duffy, please your honour, just at the corner of
the road, where the bridge is broken down, that your honour is to have
the presentment for this year--long life to you for it! And he was at
that time coming from the fair of Gurtishannon, and I the same way. ‘How
are you, Jemmy?’ says I. ‘Very well, I thank ye kindly, Bryan,’ says he;
‘shall we turn back to Paddy Salmon’s and take a naggin of whiskey to
our better acquaintance?’ ‘I don’t care if I did, Jemmy,’ says I; ‘only
it is what I can’t take the whiskey, because I’m under an oath against
it for a month.’ Ever since, please your honour, the day your honour met
me on the road, and observed to me I could hardly stand, I had taken so
much; though upon my conscience your honour wronged me greatly that same
time--ill luck to them that belied me behind my back to your honour!
Well, please your honour, as I was telling you, as he was taking the
whiskey, and we talking of one thing or t’other, he makes me an offer to
swop his mare that he couldn’t sell at the fair of Gurtishannon, because
nobody would be troubled with the beast, please your honour, against my
horse, and to oblige him I took the mare--sorrow take her! and him along
with her! She kicked me a new car, that was worth three pounds ten, to
tatters the first time I ever put her into it, and I expect your honour
will make him pay me the price of the car, any how, before I pay the
grazing, which I’ve no right to pay at-all-at-all, only to oblige him.
But I leave it all to your honour; and the whole grazing he ought to be
charging for the beast is but two and eight pence halfpenny, any how,
please your honour. So I’ll abide by what your honour says, good or bad.
I’ll leave it all to your honour.”

I’ll leave _it_ all to your honour--literally means, I’ll leave all the
trouble to your honour.

The Editor knew a justice of the peace in Ireland, who had such a dread
of _having it all left to his honour_, that he frequently gave the
complainants the sum about which they were disputing, to make peace
between them, and to get rid of the trouble of hearing their stories
_out of the face_. But he was soon cured of this method of buying off
disputes, by the increasing multitude of those who, out of pure regard
to his honour, came “to get justice from him, because they would sooner
come before him than before any man in all Ireland.”

[Z] _A raking pot of tea_.--We should observe, this custom has long
since been banished from the higher orders of Irish gentry. The
mysteries of a raking pot of tea, like those of the Bona Dea, are
supposed to be sacred to females; but now and then it has happened, that
some of the male species, who were either more audacious, or more highly
favoured than the rest of their sex, have been admitted by stealth to
these orgies. The time when the festive ceremony begins varies according
to circumstances, but it is never earlier than twelve o’clock at night;
the joys of a raking pot of tea depending on its being made in secret,
and at an unseasonable hour. After a ball, when the more discreet part
of the company has departed to rest, a few chosen female spirits, who
have footed it till they can foot it no longer, and till the sleepy
notes expire under the slurring hand of the musician, retire to a
bedchamber, call the favourite maid, who alone is admitted, bid her
_put down the kettle_, lock the door, and amidst as much giggling and
scrambling as possible, they get round a tea-table, on which all manner
of things are huddled together. Then begin mutual railleries and mutual
confidences amongst the young ladies, and the faint scream and the loud
laugh is heard, and the romping for letters and pocket-books begins,
and gentlemen are called by their surnames, or by the general name of
fellows! pleasant fellows! charming fellows! odious fellows! abominable
fellows! and then all prudish decorums are forgotten, and then we might
be convinced how much the satirical poet was mistaken when he said,

    “There is no woman where there’s no reserve.”

The merit of the original idea of a raking pot of tea evidently belongs
to the washerwoman and the laundry-maid. But why should not we have _Low
life above stairs_ as well as _High life below stairs_?

[A2] _We gained the day by this piece of honesty_.--In a dispute which
occurred some years ago in Ireland, between Mr. E. and Mr. M., about
the boundaries of a farm, an old tenant of Mr. M.’s cut a _sod_ from Mr.
M.’s land, and inserted it in a spot prepared for its reception in
Mr. E.’s land; so nicely was it inserted, that no eye could detect the
junction of the grass. The old man, who was to give his evidence as to
the property, stood upon the inserted sod when the _viewers_ came, and
swore that the ground he _then stood upon_ belonged to his landlord, Mr.
M.

The Editor had flattered himself that the ingenious contrivance which
Thady records, and the similar subterfuge of this old Irishman, in
the dispute concerning boundaries, were instances of _‘cuteness_
unparalleled in all but Irish story: an English friend, however,
has just mortified the Editor’s national vanity by an account of
the following custom, which prevails in part of Shropshire. It is
discreditable for women to appear abroad after the birth of their
children till they have been _churched_. To avoid this reproach, and at
the same time to enjoy the pleasure of gadding, whenever a woman goes
abroad before she has been to church, she takes a tile from the roof of
her house, and puts it upon her head: wearing this panoply all the time
she pays her visits, her conscience is perfectly at ease; for she can
afterwards safely declare to the clergyman, that she “has never been
from under her own roof till she came to be churched.”

[B2] _Carton, and half carton_.--Thady means cartron, and half cartron.
“According to the old record in the black book of Dublin, a _cantred_ is
said to contain 30 _villatas terras_, which are also called _quarters_
of land (quarterons, _cartrons_); every one of which quarters must
contain so much ground as will pasture 400 cows, and 17 plough-lands.
A knight’s fee was composed of 8 hydes, which amount to 160 acres, and
that is generally deemed about a _ploughland_.”

The Editor was favoured by a learned friend with the above extract, from
a MS. of Lord Totness’s in the Lambeth library.

[C2] _Wake_.--A wake in England means a festival held upon the
anniversary of the saint of the parish. At these wakes, rustic games,
rustic conviviality, and rustic courtship, are pursued with all the
ardour and all the appetite which accompany such pleasures as occur but
seldom. In Ireland a wake is a midnight meeting, held professedly for
the indulgence of holy sorrow, but usually it is converted into orgies
of unholy joy. When an Irish man or woman of the lower order dies, the
straw which composed the bed, whether it has been contained in a bag to
form a mattress, or simply spread upon the earthen floor, is immediately
taken out of the house, and burned before the cabin door, the family
at the same time setting up the death howl. The ears and eyes of the
neighbours being thus alarmed, they flock to the house of the deceased,
and by their vociferous sympathy excite and at the same time soothe the
sorrows of the family.

It is curious to observe how good and bad are mingled in human
institutions. In countries which were thinly inhabited, this custom
prevented private attempts against the lives of individuals, and formed
a kind of coroner’s inquest upon the body which had recently expired,
and burning the straw upon which the sick man lay became a simple
preservative against infection. At night the dead body is waked, that is
to say, all the friends and neighbours of the deceased collect in a barn
or stable, where the corpse is laid upon some boards, or an unhinged
door, supported upon stools, the face exposed, the rest of the
body covered with a white sheet. Bound the body are stuck in brass
candlesticks, which have been borrowed perhaps at five miles’ distance,
as many candles as the poor person can beg or borrow, observing always
to have an odd number. Pipes and tobacco are first distributed, and
then, according to the _ability_ of the deceased, cakes and ale, and
sometimes whiskey, are _dealt_ to the company:

    “Deal on, deal on, my merry men all,
    Deal on your cakes and your wine,
    For whatever is dealt at her funeral to-day
    Shall be dealt to-morrow at mine.”

After a fit of universal sorrow, and the comfort of a universal dram,
the scandal of the neighbourhood, as in higher circles, occupies the
company. The young lads and lasses romp with one another, and when the
fathers and mothers are at last overcome with sleep and whiskey (_vino
et somno_), the youth become more enterprising, and are frequently
successful. It is said that more matches are made at wakes than at
weddings.

[D2] _Kilt_.--This word frequently occurs in the preceding pages, where
it means not _killed_, but much _hurt_. In Ireland, not only cowards,
but the brave “die many times before their death.”--There killing is no
murder.




FOOTNOTES:


[1] “The cloak, or mantle, as described by Thady, is of high antiquity.
Spenser, in his ‘View of the State of Ireland,’ proves that it is not,
as some have imagined, peculiarly derived from the Scythians, but that
most nations of the world anciently used the mantle; for the Jews used
it, as you may read of Elias’s mantle, &c.; the Chaldees also used it,
as you may read in Diodorus; the Egyptians likewise used it, as you may
read in Herodotus, and may be gathered by the description of Berenice
in the Greek Commentary upon Callimachus; the Greeks also used it
anciently, as appeared by Venus’s mantle lined with stars, though
afterward they changed the form thereof into their cloaks, called
Pallai, as some of the Irish also use: and the ancient Latins and Romans
used it, as you may read in Virgil, who was a great antiquary, that
Evander when Aeneas came to him at his feast, did entertain and feast
him sitting on the ground, and lying on mantles: insomuch that he useth
the very word mantile for a mantle,

    ‘------Humi mantilia sternunt:’

so that it seemeth that the mantle was a general habit to most nations,
and not proper to the Scythians only.”

Spenser knew the convenience of the said mantle, as housing, bedding,
and clothing.

“_Iren_. Because the commodity doth not countervail the discommodity;
for the inconveniences which thereby do arise are much more many; for it
is a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, and an apt cloak
for a thief. First, the outlaw being, for his many crimes and villanies,
banished from the towns and houses of honest men, and wandering in waste
places, far from danger of law, maketh his mantle his house, and under
it covereth himself from the wrath of Heaven, from the offence of the
earth, and from the sight of men. When it raineth, it is his penthouse;
when it bloweth, it is his tent; when it freezeth, it is his tabernacle.
In summer he can wear it loose; in winter he can wrap it close; at all
times he can use it; never heavy, never cumbersome. Likewise for a rebel
it is as serviceable; for in this war that he maketh (if at least
it deserves the name of war), when he still flieth from his foe, and
lurketh in the _thick woods (this should be black bogs_) and straight
passages, waiting for advantages, it is his bed, yea, and almost his
household stuff.”

[2] These fairy-mounts are called ant-hills in England. They are held
in high reverence by the common people in Ireland. A gentleman, who in
laying out his lawn had occasion to level one of these hillocks, could
not prevail upon any of his labourers to begin the ominous work. He was
obliged to take a _loy_ from one of their reluctant hands, and began the
attack himself. The labourers agreed, that the vengeance of the fairies
would fall upon the head of the presumptuous mortal, who first disturbed
them in their retreat. See Glossary [K].

[3] The Banshee is a species of aristocratic fairy, who, in the shape of
a little hideous old woman, has been known to appear, and heard to sing
in a mournful supernatural voice under the windows of great houses, to
warn the family that some of them are soon to die. In the last century
every great family in Ireland had a Banshee, who attended regularly; but
latterly their visits and songs have been discontinued.

[4] _Childer:_ this is the manner in which many of Thady’s rank, and
others in Ireland, _formerly_ pronounced the word _children_.

[5] _Middle men_.--There was a class of men termed middle men in
Ireland, who took large farms on long leases from gentlemen of landed
property, and let the land again in small portions to the poor, as
under-tenants, at exorbitant rents. The _head landlord_, as he _was_
called, seldom saw his _under-tenants_; but if he could not get the
_middle man_ to pay him his rent punctually, he _went to his land, and
drove the land for his rent_, that is to say, he sent his steward or
bailiff, or driver, to the land to seize the cattle, hay, corn, flax,
oats, or potatoes, belonging to the under-tenants, and proceeded to
sell these for his rents: it sometimes happened that these unfortunate
tenants paid their rent twice over, once to _the middle man_, and once
to the _head landlord_.

The characteristics of a middle man _were_, servility to his superiors,
and tyranny towards his inferiors: the poor detested this race of
beings. In speaking to them, however, they always used the most abject
language, and the most humble tone and posture--“_Please your honour;
and please your honour’s honour_” they knew must be repeated as a
charm at the beginning and end of every equivocating, exculpatory, or
supplicatory sentence; and they were much more alert in doffing their
caps to these new men, than to those of what they call _good old
families_. A witty carpenter once termed these middle men _journeymen
gentlemen_.

[6] This part of the history of the Rackrent family can scarcely be
thought credible; but in justice to honest Thady, it is hoped the reader
will recollect the history of the celebrated Lady Cathcart’s conjugal
imprisonment.--The editor was acquainted with Colonel M’Guire, Lady
Cathcart’s husband; he has lately seen and questioned the maid-servant
who lived with Colonel M’Guire during the time of Lady Cathcart’s
imprisonment. Her ladyship was locked up in her own house for many
years; during which period her husband was visited by the neighbouring
gentry, and it was his regular custom at dinner to send his compliments
to Lady Cathcart, informing her that the company had the honour to drink
her ladyship’s health, and begging to know whether there was any thing
at table that she would like to eat? the answer was always, “Lady
Cathcart’s compliments, and she has every thing she wants.” An instance
of honesty in a poor Irish woman deserves to be recorded:--Lady Cathcart
had some remarkably fine diamonds, which she had concealed from her
husband, and which she was anxious to get out of the house, lest he
should discover them. She had neither servant nor friend to whom she
could entrust them; but she had observed a poor beggar woman, who used
to come to the house; she spoke to her from the window of the room in
which she was confined; the woman promised to do what she desired, and
Lady Cathcart threw a parcel, containing the jewels, to her. The poor
woman carried them to the person to whom they were directed; and several
years afterwards, when Lady Cathcart recovered her liberty, she received
her diamonds safely.

At Colonel M’Guire’s death her ladyship was released. The editor, within
this year, saw the gentleman who accompanied her to England after her
husband’s death. When she first was told of his death, she imagined that
the news was not true, and that it was told only with an intention of
deceiving her. At his death she had scarcely clothes sufficient to cover
her; she wore a red wig, looked scared, and her understanding seemed
stupified; she said that she scarcely knew one human creature from
another: her imprisonment lasted above twenty years. These circumstances
may appear strange to an English reader; but there is no danger in
the present times, that any individual should exercise such tyranny as
Colonel M’Guire’s with impunity, the power being now all in the hands of
government, and there being no possibility of obtaining from parliament
an act of indemnity for any cruelties.

[7] Boo! boo! an exclamation equivalent to _pshaw_ or _nonsense_.

[8] _Pin_, read _pen_. It formerly was vulgarly pronounced _pin_ in
Ireland.

[9] _Her mark_. It _was_ the custom in Ireland for those who could not
write to make a cross to stand for their signature, as was formerly the
practice of our English monarchs. The Editor inserts the fac-simile
of an Irish _mark_, which may hereafter be valuable to a judicious
antiquary--

         Her
    Judy  X  M’Quirk,
         Mark.

In bonds or notes, signed in this manner, a witness is requisite, as the
name is frequently written by him or her.

[10] _Vows_.--It has been maliciously and unjustly hinted, that the
lower classes of the people in Ireland pay but little regard to oaths;
yet it is certain that some oaths or vows have great power over their
minds. Sometimes they swear they will be revenged on some of their
neighbours; this is an oath that they are never known to break. But,
what is infinitely more extraordinary and unaccountable, they sometimes
make and keep a vow against whiskey; these vows are usually limited to
a short time. A woman who has a drunken husband is most fortunate if she
can prevail upon him to go to the priest, and make a vow against whiskey
for a year, or a month, or a week, or a day.

[11] _Gossoon_, a little boy--from the French word _garçon_. In most
Irish families there _used_ to be a barefooted gossoon, who was slave
to the cook and butler, and who in fact, without wages, did all the
hard work of the house. Gossoons were always employed as messengers. The
Editor has known a gossoon to go on foot, without shoes or stockings,
fifty-one English miles between sunrise and sunset.

[12] At St. Patrick´s meeting, London, March, 1806, the Duke of
Sussex said he had the honour of bearing an Irish title, and, with the
permission of the company, he should tell them an anecdote of what he
had experienced on his travels. When he was at Rome, he went to visit an
Irish seminary, and when they heard who he was, and that he had an Irish
title, some of them asked him, “Please you Royal Highness, since you
are an Irish peer, will you tell us if you ever trod upon Irish ground?”
 When he told them he had not, “Oh, then,” said one of the order, “you
shall soon do so”. They then spread some earth, which had been brought
from Ireland, on a marble slab, and made him stand upon it.

[13] This was actually done at an election in Ireland.

[14] _To put him up_--to put him in gaol.

[15] _My little potatoes_--Thady does not mean, by this expression,
that his potatoes were less than other people’s, or less than the usual
size--_little_ is here used only as an Italian diminutive, expressive of
fondness.

[16] _Kith and kin_--family or relations. _Kin_ from _kind_; _kith_ from
we know not what.

[17] Wigs were formerly used instead of brooms in Ireland, for sweeping
or dusting tables, stairs, &c. The Editor doubted the fact, till he saw
a labourer of the old school sweep down a flight of stairs with his wig;
he afterwards put it on his head again with the utmost composure, and
said, “Oh, please your honour, it’s never a bit the worse.”

It must be acknowledged, that these men are not in any danger of
catching cold by taking off their wigs occasionally, because they
usually have fine crops of hair growing under their wigs. The wigs are
often yellow, and the hair which appears from beneath them black; the
wigs are usually too small, and are raised up by the hair beneath, or by
the ears of the wearers.

[18] A wake in England is a meeting avowedly for merriment; in Ireland
it is a nocturnal meeting avowedly for the purpose of watching and
bewailing the dead; but, in reality, for gossiping and debauchery. See
Glossary [C2].

[19] Shebean-house, a hedge alehouse. Shebcan properly means weak
small-beer, taplash.

[20] At the coronation of one of our monarchs, the king complained of
the confusion which happened in the procession. The great officer who
presided told his majesty, “That it should not be so next time.”

[21] _Kilt and smashed_.--Our author is not here guilty of an
anti-climax. The mere English reader, from a similarity of sound between
the words _kilt_ and _killed_, might be induced to suppose that
their meanings are similar, yet they are not by any means in Ireland
synonymous terms. Thus you may hear a man exclaim, “I’m kilt and
murdered!” but he frequently means only that he has received a black
eye, or a slight contusion.--_I’m kilt all over_ means that he is in a
worse state than being simply _kilt_. Thus, _I’m kilt with the cold_, is
nothing to _I’m kilt all over with the rheumatism_.

[22] _The room_--the principal room in the house.

[23] _Tester_--sixpence; from the French word, tête, a head: a piece of
silver stamped with a head, which in old French was called “un testion,”
 and which was about the value of an old English sixpence. Tester is used
in Shakspeare.






ESSAY ON IRISH BULLS


    Summos posse viros, et magna exempla daturos, Vervecum in patria,
    crassoque sub aëre nasci. JUVENAL.



IRISH BULLS


INTRODUCTION.

What mortal, what fashionable mortal, is there who has not, in the midst
of a formidable circle, been reduced to the embarrassment of having
nothing to say? Who is there that has not felt those oppressive fits
of silence which ensue after the weather, and the fashions, and the
politics, and the scandal, and all the common-place topics of the day
have been utterly exhausted? Who is there that, at such a time, has not
tried in vain to call up an idea, and found that _none would come when
they did call_, or that all that came were impertinent, and must be
rejected, some as too grave, others too gay, some too vulgar, some
too refined for the hearers, some relating to persons, others to
circumstances that must not be mentioned? Not one will do! and all this
time the silence lasts, and the difficulty of breaking it increases
every instant in an incalculable proportion.

Let it be some comfort to those whose polite sensibility has laboured
under such distress to be assured, that they need never henceforward
fear to be reduced to similar dilemmas. They may be insured for ever
against such dangers at the slight premium and upon the easy condition
of perusing the following little volume. It will satisfy them that there
is a subject which still affords inexhausted and inexhaustible sources
of conversation, suited to all tastes, all ranks, all individuals,
democratic, aristocratic, commercial, or philosophic; suited to every
company which can be combined, purposely or fortuitously, in this great
metropolis, or in any of the most remote parts of England, Wales, or
Scotland. There is a subject which dilates the heart of every true
Briton, which relaxes his muscles, however rigid, to a smile,--which
opens his lips, however closed, to conversation. There is a subject
“which frets another’s spleen to cure our own,” and which makes even
the angelic part of the creation _laugh themselves mortal_. For who can
forbear to laugh at the bare idea of an Irish bull?

Nor let any one apprehend that this subject can ever become trite and
vulgar. Custom cannot stale its infinite variety. It is in the main
obvious, and palpable enough for every common understanding; yet
it leads to disquisitions of exquisite subtlety, it branches into
innumerable ramifications, and involves consequences of surprising
importance; it may exercise the ingenuity of the subtlest wit, the fancy
of the oddest humourist, the imagination of the finest poet, and the
judgment of the most profound metaphysician. Moreover, this happy
subject is enveloped in all that doubt and confusion which are so
favourable to the reputation of disputants, and which secures the
glorious possibility of talking incessantly, without being stopped short
by a definition or a demonstration. For much as we have all heard and
talked of Irish bulls, it has never yet been decided what it is
that constitutes a bull. _Incongruity of ideas_, says one. But this
supposition touches too closely upon the definition of wit, which,
according to the best authorities, Locke, Burke, and Stewart, consists
in an unexpected assemblage of ideas, apparently discordant, but in
which some point of resemblance or aptitude is suddenly discovered.

Then, perhaps, says another, the essence of a bull lies in _confusion
of ideas_. This sounds plausible in theory, but it will not apply
in practice; for confusion of ideas is common to both countries: for
instance, was there not some slight confusion of ideas in the mind of
that English student, who, when he was asked what progress he had made
in the study of medicine, replied, “I hope I shall soon be qualified to
be a physician, for I think I am now able to cure a child?”

To amend our bill, suppose we insert the word laughable, and say that
a _laughable confusion of ideas_ constitutes a bull. But have we not
a laughable confusion of ideas in our English poet Blackmore’s famous
lines in Prince Arthur?--

   “A painted vest prince Vortigern had on,
    Which from a naked Pict his grandsire won.”

We are sensible that, to many people, the most vulgar Irish bull would
appear more laughable merely from its being Irish,--therefore we cannot
make the propensity to laughter in one man the criterion of what is
ridiculous in another; though we have a precedent for this mode of
judging in the laws of England, which are allowed to be the perfection
of human reason. If a man swear that his neighbour has put him in
bodily fear, he may have the cause of his terror sent to gaol; thus the
feelings of the plaintiff become the measure of the defendant’s guilt.
As we cannot extend this convenient principle to all matters of taste,
and all subjects of risibility, we are still compelled to acknowledge
that no accurate definition of a bull has yet been given. The essence of
an Irish bull must be of the most ethereal nature, for notwithstanding
the most indefatigable research, it has hitherto escaped from analysis.
The crucible always breaks in the long-expected moment of projection: we
have nevertheless the courage to recommence the process in a new mode.
Perhaps by ascertaining what it is not, we may at last discover what it
is: we must distinguish the genuine from the spurious, the original from
all imitations, the indigenous from the exotic; in short, it must be
determined in what an Irish bull essentially differs from a blunder, or
in what Irish blunders specifically differ from English blunders, and
from those of all other nations. To elucidate these points, or to prove
to the satisfaction of all competent judges that they are beyond the
reach of the human understanding, is the object of the following _Essay
concerning the Nature of Bulls and Blunders_.




CHAPTER I.

ORIGINALITY OF IRISH BULLS EXAMINED.


The difficulty of selecting from the vulgar herd of Irish bulls one that
shall be entitled to the prize, from the united merits of pre-eminent
absurdity, and indisputable originality, is greater than hasty judges
may imagine. Many bulls, reputed to be bred and born in Ireland, are of
foreign extraction; and many more, supposed to be unrivalled in their
kind, may be matched in all their capital _points_: for instance, there
is not a more celebrated bull than Paddy Blake’s. When Paddy heard an
English gentleman speaking of the fine echo at the lake of Killarney,
which repeats the sound forty times, he very promptly observed, “Faith,
that’s nothing at all to the echo in my father’s garden, in the county
of Galway: if you say to it, ‘How do you do, Paddy Blake?’ it will
answer, ‘Pretty well, I thank you, sir.’”

Now this echo of Paddy Blake’s, which has long been the admiration of
the world, is not a prodigy _unique_ in its kind; it can be matched by
one recorded in the immortal works of the great Lord Verulam.[24]

“I remember well,” says this father of philosophy, “that when I went to
the echo at Port Charenton, there was an old Parisian that took it to be
the work of spirits, and of good spirits, ‘for,’ said he, ‘call Satan,
and the echo will not deliver back the devil’s name, but will say, ‘Va
t’en.’”

The Parisian echo is surely superior to the Hibernian! Paddy Blake’s
simply understood and practised the common rules of good-breeding; but
the Port Charenton echo is “instinct with spirit,” and endowed with a
nice moral sense.

Amongst the famous bulls recorded by the illustrious Joe Miller, there
is one which has been continually quoted as an example of original Irish
genius. An English gentleman was writing a letter in a coffee-house, and
perceiving that an Irishman stationed behind him was taking that liberty
which Hephaestion used with his f

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