Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth Read online

  ‘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.’ [At the coronation of one of our monarchs the King complained of the confusion which happened in the procession. ‘The great officer who presided told his Majesty that ‘it should not be so next time.’]

  ‘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 [See GLOSSARY 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,” [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.’] 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 vacancy should have happened.

  The next day, before his honour was up, somebody comes with a double knock at the door, and I was greatly surprised to see it was my son Jason.

  ‘Jason, is it you?’ said I; ‘what brings you to the Lodge?’ says I. ‘Is it my Lady Rackrent? We know that already since yesterday.’

  ‘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 to-day, 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 ladys
hip, I’m sure,’ answered Sir Condy, still stiff; and there was another sort of a silence, which seemed to lie the heaviest on my son Jason.

  ‘Sir Condy,’ says he at last, seeing Sir Condy disposing himself to go to sleep again, ‘Sir Condy, I daresay you recollect mentioning to me the little memorandum you gave to Lady Rackrent about the L500 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 be moving to the Lodge, to make his bargain with my master about the jointure afore it should be too late, and afore the little gossoon should reach us with the news. My master was greatly vexed — that is, I may say, as much as ever I seen him when he found how he had been taken in; but it was some comfort to have the ready cash for immediate consumption in the house, 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 room [THE ROOM — the principal room in the house], 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 elevat
ed 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.’ [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.]

  ‘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.