Castle Rackrent

by Maria Edgeworth

  ‘Sir Condy,’ says he at last, seeing Sir Condy disposing himself to go to sleep again,‘Sir Condy, I daresay you recollect mentioning to me the little memorandum you gave to Lady Rackrent about the £500 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 of 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 anything 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 he 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, anyway.

  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 apiece.

  ‘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 made 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 room24, drinking with the excise-man 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; ‘maybe 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,’ answered I. ‘Nay, don’t he 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 anyway 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 choking in my throat that hindered me to say more.

  ‘Better luck, anyhow, 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 anything, 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 you don’t.’25

  ‘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 greatcoat 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 a 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 anything in this world, after all I’ve seen in it; but I’ll say nothing — it would be a folly to he 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 everybody knows as well as I do?

  9 Boo! Boo! — an exclamation equivalent to PSHAW or NONSENSE

  10 PIN, read PEN. — It formerly was vulgarly pronounced PIN in Ireland

  11 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 facsimile 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.

  12 VOWS. — It has been maliciously and unjustly hinted that the lower classes of the people of 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 whisky; 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 whisky for a year, or a month, or a week, or a day.

  13 GOSSOON: a little boy — from the French word GARCON. In most Irish families there used to be a barefooted gossoon, who was slave to the cook and the 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.

  14 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 it was, and that he had an Irish title, some of them asked him, ‘Please your 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.

  15 This was actually done at an election in Ireland.

  16 TO PUT HIM UP: to put him in gaol

  17 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.

  18 KITH AND KIN: family or relations. KIN from KIND; KITH from we know not what.

  19 Wigs were formerly used instead of brooms in Ireland for sweeping or dusting tables, stairs, etc. 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.

  20 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. 28

  21 ‘Shebeen-house,’ a hedge alehouse. Shebeen properly means weak, small — beer, taplash.

  22 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 ne
xt time.’

  23 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.’

  24 THE ROOM— the principal room in the house

  25 TESTER: sixpence; from the French word TETE, 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.

  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 a 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.