Part 7

‘And am I to walk through all this crowd of people, my dearest love?’ said she to Sir Condy, meaning us servants and tenants, who had gathered at the back gate.

‘My dear,’ said Sir Condy, ‘there’s nothing for it but to walk, or to let me carry you as far as the house, for you see the back road is too narrow for a carriage, and the great piers have tumbled down across the front approach; so there’s no driving the right way, by reason of the ruins.’

‘Plato, thou reasonest well!’ said she, or words to that effect, which I could noways understand; and again, when her foot stumbled against a broken bit of a car-wheel, she cried out, ‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us!’ Well, thought I, to be sure, if she’s no Jewish, like the last, she is a mad woman for certain, which is as bad: it would have been as well for my poor master to have taken up with poor Judy, who is in her right mind anyhow.

She was dressed like a mad woman, moreover, more than like any one I ever saw afore or since, and I could not take my eyes off her, but still followed behind her; and her feathers on the top of her hat were broke going in at the low back door and she pulled out her little bottle out of her pocket to smell when she found herself in the kitchen, and said, ‘I shall faint with the heat of this odious, odious place.’

‘My dear, it’s only three steps across the kitchen, and there’s a fine air if your veil was up,’ said Sir Condy; and with that threw back her veil, so that I had then a full sight of her face. She had not at all the colour of one going to faint, but a fine complexion of her own, as I then took it to be, though her maid told me after it was all put on; but even, complexion and all taken in, she was no way, in point of good looks, to compare to poor Judy, and withal she had a quality toss with her; but maybe it was my over-partiality to Judy, into whose place I may say she stepped, that made me notice all this.

To do her justice, however, she was, when we came to know her better, very liberal in her housekeeping--nothing at all of the skinflint in her; she left everything to the housekeeper, and her own maid, Mrs. Jane, who went with her to Scotland, gave her the best of characters for generosity. She seldom or ever wore a thing twice the same way, Mrs. Jane told us, and was always pulling her things to pieces and giving them away, never being used, in her father’s house, to think of expense in anything; and she reckoned to be sure to go on the same way at Castle Rackrent; but when I came to inquire, I learned that her father was so mad with her for running off, after his locking her up and forbidding her to think any more of Sir Condy, that he would not give her a farthing; and it was lucky for her she had a few thousands of her own, which had been left to her by a good grandmother, and these were very convenient to begin with. My master and my lady set out in great style; they had the finest coach and chariot, and horses and liveries, and cut the greatest dash in the county, returning their wedding visits; and it was immediately reported that her father had undertaken to pay all my master’s debts, and of course all his tradesmen gave him a new credit, and everything went on smack smooth, and I could not but admire my lady’s spirit, and was proud to see Castle Rackrent again in all its glory. My lady had a fine taste for building, and furniture, and playhouses, and she turned everything topsy-turvy, and made the barrack-room into a theatre, as she called it, and she went on as if she had a mint of money at her elbow; and to be sure I thought she knew best, especially as Sir Condy said nothing to it one way or the other. All he asked--God bless him!--was to live in peace and quietness, and have his bottle or his whisky-punch at night to himself. Now this was little enough, to be sure, for any gentleman; but my lady couldn’t abide the smell of the whisky-punch.

‘My dear,’ says he, ‘you liked it well enough before we were married, and why not now?’

‘My dear,’ said she, ‘I never smelt it, or I assure you I should never have prevailed upon myself to marry you.’

‘My dear, I am sorry you did not smell it, but we can’t help that now,’ returned my master, without putting himself in a passion, or going out of his way, but just fair and easy helped himself to another glass, and drank it off to her good health.

All this the butler told me, who was going backwards and forwards unnoticed with the jug, and hot water, and sugar, and all he thought wanting. Upon my master’s swallowing the last glass of whisky-punch my lady burst into tears, calling him an ungrateful, base, barbarous wretch; and went off into a fit of hysterics, as I think Mrs. Jane called it, and my poor master was greatly frightened, this being the first thing of the kind he had seen; and he fell straight on his knees before her, and, like a good-hearted cratur as he was, ordered the whisky-punch out of the room, and bid ‘em throw open all the windows, and cursed himself: and then my lady came to herself again, and when she saw him kneeling there, bid him get up, and not forswear himself any more, for that she was sure he did not love her, and never had. This we learned from Mrs. Jane, who was the only person left present at all this.

‘My dear,’ returns my master, thinking, to be sure, of Judy, as well he might, ‘whoever told you so is an incendiary, and I’ll have ‘em turned out of the house this minute, if you’ll only let me know which of them it was.’

‘Told me what?’ said my lady, starting upright in her chair.

‘Nothing at all, nothing at all,’ said my master, seeing he had overshot himself, and that my lady spoke at random; ‘but what you said just now, that I did not love you, Bella; who told you that?’

‘My own sense,’ she said, and she put her handkerchief to her face, and leant back upon Mrs. Jane, and fell to sobbing as if her heart would break.

‘Why now, Bella, this is very strange of you,’ said my poor master; ‘if nobody has told you nothing, what is it you are taking on for at this rate, and exposing yourself and me for this way?’

‘Oh, say no more, say no more; every word you say kills me,’ cried my lady; and she ran on like one, as Mrs. Jane says, raving, ‘Oh, Sir Condy, Sir Condy! I that had hoped to find in you--’

‘Why now, faith, this is a little too much; do, Bella, try to recollect yourself, my dear; am not I your husband, and of your own choosing, and is not that enough?’

‘Oh, too much! too much!’ cried my lady, wringing her hands.

‘Why, my dear, come to your right senses, for the love of heaven. See, is not the whisky-punch, jug and bowl and all, gone out of the room long ago? What is it, in the wide world, you have to complain of?’

But still my lady sobbed and sobbed, and called herself the most wretched of women; and among other out-of-the-way provoking things, asked my master, was he fit company for her, and he drinking all night? This nettling him, which it was hard to do, he replied, that as to drinking all night, he was then as sober as she was herself, and that it was no matter how much a man drank, provided it did noways affect or stagger him: that as to being fit company for her, he thought himself of a family to be fit company for any lord or lady in the land; but that he never prevented her from seeing and keeping what company she pleased, and that he had done his best to make Castle Rackrent pleasing to her since her marriage, having always had the house full of visitors, and if her own relations were not amongst them, he said that was their own fault, and their pride’s fault, of which he was sorry to find her ladyship had so unbecoming a share. So concluding, he took his candle and walked off to his room, and my lady was in her tantarums for three days after; and would have been so much longer, no doubt, but some of her friends, young ladies, and cousins, and second cousins, came to Castle Rackrent, by my poor master’s express invitation, to see her, and she was in a hurry to get up, as Mrs. Jane called it, a play for them, and so got well, and was as finely dressed, and as happy to look at, as ever; and all the young ladies, who used to be in her room dressing of her, said in Mrs. Jane’s hearing that my lady was the happiest bride ever they had seen, and that to be sure a love-match was the only thing for happiness, where the parties could any way afford it.

As to affording it, God knows it was little they knew of the matter; my lady’s few thousands could not last for ever, especially the way she went on with them; and letters from tradesfolk came every post thick and threefold, with bills as long as my arm, of years’ and years’ standing. My son Jason had ‘em all handed over to him, and the pressing letters were all unread by Sir Condy, who hated trouble, and could never be brought to hear talk of business, but still put it off and put it off, saying, ‘Settle it anyhow,’ or, ‘Bid ‘em call again to-morrow,’ or, ‘Speak to me about it some other time.’ Now it was hard to find the right time to speak, for in the mornings he was a-bed, and in the evenings over his bottle, where no gentleman chooses to be disturbed. Things in a twelvemonth or so came to such a pass there was no making a shift to go on any longer, though we were all of us well enough used to live from hand to mouth at Castle Rackrent. One day, I remember, when there was a power of company, all sitting after dinner in the dusk, not to say dark, in the drawing-room, my lady having rung five times for candles, and none to go up, the housekeeper sent up the footman, who went to my mistress, and whispered behind her chair how it was.

‘My lady,’ says he, ‘there are no candles in the house.’

‘Bless me,’ says she; ‘then take a horse and gallop off as fast as you can to Carrick O’Fungus, and get some.’

‘And in the meantime tell them to step into the playhouse, and try if there are not some bits left,’ added Sir Condy, who happened, to be within hearing. The man was sent up again to my lady, to let her know there was no horse to go, but one that wanted a shoe.

‘Go to Sir Condy then; I know nothing at all about the horses,’ said my lady; ‘why do you plague me with these things?’ How it was settled I really forget, but to the best of my remembrance, the boy was sent down to my son Jason’s to borrow candles for the night. Another time, in the winter, and on a desperate cold day, there was no turf in for the parlour and above stairs, and scarce enough for the cook in the kitchen. The little GOSSOON{13} was sent off to the neighbours, to see and beg or borrow some, but none could he bring back with him for love or money; so, as needs must, we were forced to trouble Sir Condy--‘Well, and if there’s no turf to be had in the town or country, why, what signifies talking any more about it; can’t ye go and cut down a tree?’

{13} GOSSOON: a little boy--from the French word _garçon_. 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.

‘Which tree, please your honour?’ I made bold to say.

‘Any tree at all that’s good to burn,’ said Sir Condy; ‘send off smart and get one down, and the fires lighted, before my lady gets up to breakfast, or the house will be too hot to hold us.’

He was always very considerate in all things about my lady, and she wanted for nothing whilst he had it to give. Well, when things were tight with them about this time, my son Jason put in a word again about the Lodge, and made a genteel offer to lay down the purchase-money, to relieve Sir Condy’s distresses. Now Sir Condy had it from the best authority that there were two writs come down to the sheriff against his person, and the sheriff, as ill-luck would have it, was no friend of his, and talked how he must do his duty, and how he would do it, if it was against the first man in the country, or even his own brother, let alone one who had voted against him at the last election, as Sir Condy had done. So Sir Condy was fain to take the purchase-money of the Lodge from my son Jason to settle matters; and sure enough it was a good bargain for both parties, for my son bought the fee-simple of a good house for him and his heirs for ever, for little or nothing, and by selling of it for that same my master saved himself from a gaol. Every way it turned out fortunate for Sir Condy, for before the money was all gone there came a general election, and he being so well beloved in the county, and one of the oldest families, no one had a better right to stand candidate for the vacancy; and he was called upon by all his friends, and the whole county I may say, to declare himself against the old member, who had little thought of a contest. My master did not relish the thoughts of a troublesome canvass, and all the ill-will he might bring upon himself by disturbing the peace of the county, besides the expense, which was no trifle; but all his friends called upon one another to subscribe, and they formed themselves into a committee, and wrote all his circular letters for him, and engaged all his agents, and did all the business unknown to him; and he was well pleased that it should be so at last, and my lady herself was very sanguine about the election; and there was open house kept night and day at Castle Rackrent, and I thought I never saw my lady look so well in her life as she did at that time. There were grand dinners, and all the gentlemen drinking success to Sir Condy till they were carried off; and then dances and balls, and the ladies all finishing with a raking pot of tea in the morning.[25] Indeed, it was well the company made it their choice to sit up all nights, for there were not half beds enough for the sights of people that were in it, though there were shake-downs in the drawing-room always made up before sunrise for those that liked it. For my part, when I saw the doings that were going on, and the loads of claret that went down the throats of them that had no right to be asking for it, and the sights of meat that went up to table and never came down, besides what was carried off to one or t’other below stair, I couldn’t but pity my poor master, who was to pay for all; but I said nothing, for fear of gaining myself ill-will. The day of election will come some time or other, says I to myself, and all will be over; and so it did, and a glorious day it was as any I ever had the happiness to see.

‘Huzza! huzza! Sir Condy Rackrent for ever!’ was the first thing I hears in the morning, and the same and nothing else all day, and not a soul sober only just when polling, enough to give their votes as became ‘em, and to stand the browbeating of the lawyers, who came tight enough upon us; and many of our freeholders were knocked off; having never a freehold that they could safely swear to, and Sir Condy was not willing to have any man perjure himself for his sake, as was done on the other side, God knows; but no matter for that. Some of our friends were dumbfounded by the lawyers asking them: Had they ever been upon the ground where their freeholds lay? Now, Sir Condy being tender of the consciences of them that had not been on the ground, and so could not swear to a freehold when cross-examined by them lawyers, sent out for a couple of cleavesful of the sods of his farm of Gulteeshinnagh;{14} and as soon as the sods came into town, he set each man upon his sod, and so then, ever after, you know, they could fairly swear they had been upon the ground.{15} We gained the day by this piece of honesty.[26] I thought I should have died in the streets for joy when I seed my poor master chaired, and he bareheaded, and it raining as hard as it could pour; but all the crowds following him up and down, and he bowing and shaking hands with the whole town.

{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.

‘Is that Sir Condy Rackrent in the chair?’ says a stranger man in the crowd.

‘The same,’ says I. ‘Who else should it be? God bless him!’

‘And I take it, then, you belong to him?’ says he.

‘Not at all,’ says I; ‘but I live under him, and have done so these two hundred years and upwards, me and mine.’

‘It’s lucky for you, then,’ rejoins he, ‘that he is where he is; for was he anywhere else but in the chair, this minute he’d be in a worse place; for I was sent down on purpose to put him up,{16} and here’s my order for so doing in my pocket.’

{16} TO PUT HIM UP: to put him in gaol

It was a writ that villain the wine merchant had marked against my poor master for some hundreds of an old debt, which it was a shame to be talking of at such a time as this.

‘Put it in your pocket again, and think no more of it anyways for seven years to come, my honest friend,’ says I; ‘he’s a member of Parliament now, praised be God, and such as you can’t touch him: and if you’ll take a fool’s advice, I’d have you keep out of the way this day, or you’ll run a good chance of getting your deserts amongst my master’s friends, unless you choose to drink his health like everybody else.’

‘I’ve no objection to that in life,’ said he. So we went into one of the public-houses kept open for my master; and we had a great deal of talk about this thing and that. ‘And how is it,’ says he, ‘your master keeps on so well upon his legs? I heard say he was off Holantide twelvemonth past.’

‘Never was better or heartier in his life,’ said I.

‘It’s not that I’m after speaking of’ said he; ‘but there was a great report of his being ruined.’

‘No matter,’ says I, ‘the sheriffs two years running were his particular friends, and the sub-sheriffs were both of them gentlemen, and were properly spoken to; and so the writs lay snug with them, and they, as I understand by my son Jason the custom in them cases is, returned the writs as they came to them to those that sent ‘em much good may it do them!--with a word in Latin, that no such person as Sir Condy Rackrent, Bart., was to be found in those parts.’

‘Oh, I understand all those ways better--no offence--than you,’ says he, laughing, and at the same time filling his glass to my master’s good health, which convinced me he was a warm friend in his heart after all, though appearances were a little suspicious or so at first. ‘To be sure,’ says he, still cutting his joke, ‘when a man’s over head and shoulders in debt, he may live the faster for it, and the better if he goes the right way about it; or else how is it so many live on so well, as we see every day, after they are ruined?’

‘How is it,’ says I, being a little merry at the time--‘how is it but just as you see the ducks in the chicken-yard, just after their heads are cut off by the cook, running round and round faster than when alive?’

At which conceit he fell a-laughing, and remarked he had never had the happiness yet to see the chicken-yard at Castle Rackrent.

‘It won’t be long so, I hope,’ says I; ‘you’ll be kindly welcome there, as everybody is made by my master: there is not a freer-spoken gentleman, or a better beloved, high or low, in all Ireland.’