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’ve
come to ‘Poor Thady’; for I wear a long greatcoat{3} 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.
{3} 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,
etc.; 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 Æneas 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.’
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. Everybody 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.[2] 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 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 whisky, 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 birthday, 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![3] 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
anything as it used to be; the tenants even were sent away without their
whisky.[4] 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 anyhow, nor
anybody 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,[5] 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 everything. But I always
suspected she had Scotch blood in her veins; anything 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 lawsuit Sir
Murtagh kept hanging over him about the watercourse. 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;[6]
duty fowls, and duty turkeys, and duty geese, came as
fast as we could eat ‘em, for my lady kept a sharp lookout, and knew
to a tub of butter everything 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[7] of them, every soul, he was always driving
and driving, and pounding and pounding, and canting[8] 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[9] 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, everything
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;[10]
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{4}
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{5} 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,[12] and her sealing money[13] 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;[14] 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.[15] 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 anything 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.
{4} 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.[11]
{5} 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.
‘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;{6} 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 anything at all, but harum-scarum
called for everything as if we were conjurors, or he in a public-house.
For my part, I could not bestir myself anyhow; 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.
{6} CHILDER: this is the manner in which many of Thady’s rank, and
others in Ireland, formerly pronounced the word CHILDREN
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 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 middlemen,{7} 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?
{7} MIDDLEMEN.--There was a class of men, termed middlemen, 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 MIDDLEMAN 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 MIDDLEMAN, and once to the HEAD LANDLORD.
The characteristics of a middleman 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 those new men than to those of what they
call GOOD OLD FAMILIES. A witty carpenter once termed these
middlemen JOURNEYMEN GENTLEMEN.
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[16]--anything for the ready penny; and with all this and
presents to the agent and the driver,[17] 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
anything 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,[18] 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 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 by the return of the post, with
all which my master wrote back he was well satisfied. About this time
we learnt 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 no 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
anyhow, 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, 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 full in her face[19] 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 everything.
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 be but as dry as a bone,’ says
I, ‘after all the fires we have kept in it day and night? It’s the
barrack-room[20] 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,[21] 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.
‘Maybe 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 Allyballycarrick-o’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 honeymoon, at least her Irish honeymoon, 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:{8}
he carried her dinner himself.
{8} 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 anything at table that she would like to
eat? The answer was always, ‘Lady Cathcart’s compliments, and she
has everything she wants.’ An instance of honesty in a poor
Irishwoman 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 stupefied; 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.
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 anything 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 anything, 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 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 that 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 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 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 anywhere
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 everybody’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,[22]
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[23] 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 everything 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.’