Tales and Novels, vol 4 | Page 6

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[2] 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[3] 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,[L] and her
sealing money[M] 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;[N] 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.[O] 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 any thing 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. "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;[4] 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 where-abouts 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 any thing at all, but
harum-scarum called for every thing as if we were conjurers, or he in a
public-house. For my part, I could not bestir myself any how; 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