Castle Rackrent · Continuation of the Memoirs of the Rackrent Family (6/7)

“Thady,” says he, “all you’ve been telling me brings a strange thought into my head. I’ve a notion I shall not be long for this world anyhow, and I’ve a great fancy to see my own funeral afore I die.” I was greatly shocked, at the first speaking, to hear him speak so light about his funeral, and he, to all appearance, in good health, but recollecting myself, answered, “To be sure, it would be as fine a sight as one could see, I dared to say, and one I should be proud to witness, and I did not doubt his honour’s would be as great a funeral as ever Sir Patrick O’Shaughlin’s was, and such a one as that had never been known in the county afore or since.” But I never thought he was in earnest about seeing his own funeral himself till the next day he returns to it again. “Thady,” says he, “as far as the wake44 goes, sure I might without any great trouble have the satisfaction of seeing a bit of my own funeral.” “Well, since your honour’s honour’s so bent upon it,” says I, not willing to cross him, and he in trouble, “we must see what we can do.” So he fell into a sort of sham disorder, which was easy done, as he kept his bed, and no one to see him; and I got my shister, who was an old woman very handy about the sick, and very skilful, to come up to the Lodge to nurse him; and we gave out, she knowing no better, that he was just at his latter end, and it answered beyond anything; and there was a great throng of people, men, women, and childer, and there being only two rooms at the Lodge, except what was locked up full of Jason’s furniture and things, the house was soon as full and fuller than it could hold, and the heat, and smoke, and noise wonderful great; and standing amongst them that were near the bed, but not thinking at all of the dead, I was startled by the sound of my master’s voice from under the greatcoats that had been thrown all at top, and I went close up, no one noticing. “Thady,” says he, “I’ve had enough of this; I’m smothering, and can’t hear a word of all they’re saying of the deceased.” “God bless you, and lie still and quiet,” says I, “a bit longer, for my shister’s afraid of ghosts, and would die on the spot with fright was she to see you come to life all on a sudden this way without the least preparation.” So he lays him still, though well nigh stifled, and I made all haste to tell the secret of the joke, whispering to one and t’other, and there was a great surprise, but not so great as we had laid out it would. “And aren’t we to have the pipes and tobacco, after coming so far tonight?” said some; but they were all well enough pleased when his honour got up to drink with them, and sent for more spirits from a shebeen-house,45 where they very civilly let him have it upon credit. So the night passed off very merrily, but to my mind Sir Condy was rather upon the sad order in the midst of it all, not finding there had been such a great talk about himself after his death as he had always expected to hear.

The next morning, when the house was cleared of them, and none but my shister and myself left in the kitchen with Sir Condy, one opens the door and walks in, and who should it be but Judy McQuirk herself! I forgot to notice, that she had been married long since, whilst young captain Moneygawl lived at the Lodge, to the captain’s huntsman, who after a whilst listed and left her, and was killed in the wars. Poor Judy fell off greatly in her good looks after her being married a year or two; and being smoke-dried in the cabin, and neglecting herself like, it was hard for Sir Condy himself to know her again till she spoke; but when she says, “It’s Judy McQuirk, please your honour; don’t you remember her?” “Oh, Judy, is it you?” says his honour; “yes, sure, I remember you very well; but you’re greatly altered, Judy.” “Sure it’s time for me,” says she; “and I think your honour, since I seen you last⁠—but that’s a great while ago⁠—is altered too.” “And with reason, Judy,” says Sir Condy, fetching a sort of a sigh; “but how’s this, Judy?” he goes on; “I take it a little amiss of you that you were not at my wake last night.” “Ah, don’t be being jealous of that,” says she; “I didn’t hear a sentence of your honour’s wake till it was all over, or it would have gone hard with me but I would have been at it, sure; but I was forced to go ten miles up the country three days ago to a wedding of a relation of my own’s, and didn’t get home till after the wake was over; but,” says she, “it won’t be so, I hope, the next time,46 please your honour.” “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 kilt47 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 McGuggin’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 sledgehammer in his hand, stops the horse at the last; but my Lady Rackrent was all kilt and smashed,48 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 any way.’ 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 McQuirk 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 tossup 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 McEnerney’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 today, and to see did you want for anything at the Lodge?” “Nothing at all, Mr. Jason, I thank you,” says he; for his honour had his own share of pride, and did not choose, after all that had passed, to be beholden, I suppose, to my son; “but pray take a chair and be seated, Mr. Jason.” Jason sat him down upon the chest, for chair there was none, and after he had sat there some time, and a silence on all sides, “What news is there stirring in the country, Mr. Jason McQuirk?” says Sir Condy, very easy, yet high like. “None that’s news to you, Sir Condy, I hear,” says Jason: “I am sorry to hear of my Lady Rackrent’s accident.” “I’m much obliged to you, and so is her ladyship, I’m sure,” answered Sir Condy, still stiff; and there was another sort of a silence, which seemed to lie the heaviest on my son Jason.

“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 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.