Monday Morning [*]
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’, afterwards, 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 £1500 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 sirname
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. [See note] 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’Neills of Ballynagrotty, and the Moneygawls of Mount Juliet’s Town, and O’Shannons of New Town Tullyhog, made it their choice, often and often, when there was no moon to be had for love or 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-Stopgap, 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 birthday, he called my great grandfather in, God bless hirn! 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 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 be 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 a fit, and was carried off; they sat it out, and were surprised, on enquiry, in the morning, to find 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 nor 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! [see note] 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 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 alledging 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 [see note]. 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 [see note], 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 foresee 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 houshold 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: duty fowls, and duty turkies, and duty geese [see note], 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 law-suits, they were kept in such good order, they never thought of coming near Castle Stopgap without a present of something or other - nothing too much or too little for my lady - eggs, honey, butter, meal, fish, game, growse, 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 [see note] of them, every sou. He was always driving and driving, and pounding and pounding, and canting [see note] 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 herriots and duty work [see note] 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 with heavy 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, tythes, vagrants, gravel-pits, sandpits, dung-hills 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 law-suit 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 [see note]; 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. 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 would 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, before I was born long, 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, [see note] and her sealing money [see note] 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 it grew more serious when they came to the renewal businesses. At last, in a dispute about an abatement, my lady would have the last word, and Sir Murtagh grew mad. [See note.] I was within hearing of the door, and now wish I had made bold to step in. He spoke so loud, the whole kitchen was out on the stairs [see note]. 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 stept, 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 whereabouts 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 publichouse. For my part, I could not bestir myself any how; I had been so 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 thc 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 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 Stopgap, 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 ferretted 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 had spent their substance in the hope and trust of a renewal from the landlord.
All was now set 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 [see note] — any thing for the ready penny, and with all this, and presents to the agent and the driver [see note], 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 (long may he live to reign over us!) 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 [see note], 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 set it as well as he could to the best bidder, to be sure, and send him over £200, 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, far advancing the half year’s rent at signing the lease, which was wanting to compleat the agent’s £200, 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 haunting 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 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, as he would not choose to touch his lady’s fortune for travelling expences 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 Rackrent Gap.
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 come 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 [note] full in her face to light her, at which she shuts 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 chearful 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 nor mass. Mercy upon his honour’s poor soul, thought I, what will become of him and his, and all of us, with this heretic Blackamore 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 how things were, plain enough, between Sir Kit and my lady, though they were walking together arm in arm after breakfast, looking at the new buildings 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 [note] 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 [note] 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,’ says 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 believe 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 dare look at him whilst at Bath. Sir Kit’s character was so well known in the county, 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 Stopgap 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 she was there 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 her’s 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 drawing 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 shewed 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 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 shew 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 aims-ace of getting quit handsomely of all his enemies; but unluckily, after hitting the toothpick 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 surprize 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 shewed 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 county 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 shew 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 [note] where his cattle were well known, and all who had taken up his bets formerly were particularly inconsolable for his loss to society. His stud sold at the cant at the greatest price ever known in the country; 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 weather-cock, 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.’