the notion of his coming to be landlord over them, and they cried, “No
Jason! no Jason! Sir Condy! Sir Condy! Sir Condy Rackrent for ever!”
and the mob grew so great and so loud, I was frightened, and made my way
back to the house to warn my son to make his escape, or hide himself for
fear of the consequences. Jason would not believe me till they came
all round the house, and to the windows with great shouts: then he grew
quite pale, and asked Sir Condy what had he best do? “I’ll tell you
what you’d best do,” said Sir Condy, who was laughing to see his
fright; “finish your glass first, then let’s go to the window and show
ourselves, and I’ll tell ‘em, or you shall, if you please, that I’m
going to the Lodge for change of air for my health, and by my own
desire, for the rest of my days.” “Do so,” said Jason, who never meant
it should have been so, but could not refuse him the Lodge at this
unseasonable time. Accordingly Sir Condy threw up the sash, and
explained matters, and thanked all his friends, and bid ‘em look in at
the punch-bowl, and observe that Jason and he had been sitting over
it very good friends; so the mob was content, and he sent ‘em out some
whiskey to drink his health, and that was the last time his honour’s
health was ever drunk at Castle Rackrent.
The very next day, being too proud, as he said to me, to stay an hour
longer in a house that did not belong to him, he sets off to the Lodge,
and I along with him not many hours after. And there was great bemoaning
through all O’Shaughlin’s Town, which I stayed to witness, and gave my
poor master a full account of when I got to the Lodge. He was very low,
and in his bed, when I got there, and complained of a great pain about
his heart, but I guessed it was only trouble, and all the business, let
alone vexation, he had gone through of late; and knowing the nature of
him from a boy, I took my pipe, and, whilst smoking it by the chimney,
began telling him how he was beloved and regretted in the county, and it
did him a deal of good to hear it. “Your honour has a great many friends
yet, that you don’t know of, rich and poor, in the county,” says I;
“for as I was coming along the road, I met two gentlemen in their own
carriages, who asked after you, knowing me, and wanted to know where you
was and all about you, and even how old I was: think of that.” Then
he wakened out of his doze, and began questioning me who the gentlemen
were. And the next morning it came into my head to go, unknown to any
body, with my master’s compliments, round to many of the gentlemen’s
houses, where he and my lady used to visit, and people that I knew were
his great friends, and would go to Cork to serve him any day in the
year, and I made bold to try to borrow a trifle of cash from them. They
all treated me very civil for the most part, and asked a great many
questions very kind about my lady, and Sir Condy, and all the family,
and were greatly surprised to learn from me Castle Rackrent was sold,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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