‘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 potato 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 whisky.
‘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 shan’t be said of me I got your signature to this deed when you were half-seas over: you know your name and handwriting 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 neighbours’ 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 whillaluh 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 had 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 them 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 them out some whisky 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 anybody, 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 anyhow, 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 goes, sure I might without any great trouble have the satisfaction of seeing a bit of my own funeral.’20
‘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 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 anything; 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 startled by the sound of my master’s voice from under the greatcoats 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 shebeen-house 21, 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, please your honour.’22
‘That we shall see, Judy,’ says his honour, ‘and maybe sooner than you think for, for I’ve been very unwell this while past, and don’t reckon anyway 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 29 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 and smashed,”23 and they lifted her into a cabin hard by, and the maid was found after where she had been thrown in the gripe of a ditch, her cap and bonnet all full of bog water, and they say my lady can’t live anyway.” 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?’ says 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 as just learnt the whole truth of the story as I had it, and it’s fitter he or anybody 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 anything 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 anything 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 everything, 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 vacanc
y 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.’
‘Maybe 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 today, and to see did you want for anything 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.
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