Tales and Novels, vol 4 | Page 5

return; for she had always heaps of duty
yarn from the tenants, and got all her household linen out of the estate
from first to last; for after the spinning, the weavers on the estate took it
in hand for nothing, because of the looms my lady's interest could get
from the Linen Board to distribute gratis. Then there was a bleach-yard
near us, and the tenant dare refuse my lady nothing, for fear of a
law-suit Sir Murtagh kept hanging over him about the water-course.
With these ways of managing, 'tis surprising how cheap my lady got
things done, and how proud she was of it. Her table the same way, kept
for next to nothing;[F] duty fowls, and duty turkeys, and duty geese,
came as fast as we could eat 'em, for my lady kept a sharp look-out, and
knew to a tub of butter every thing the tenants had, all round. They
knew her way, and what with fear of driving for rent and Sir Murtagh's
lawsuits, they were kept in such good order, they never thought of
coming near Castle Rackrent without a present of something or
other--nothing too much or too little for my lady--eggs, honey, butter,
meal, fish, game, grouse, and herrings, fresh or salt, all went for
something. As for their young pigs, we had them, and the best bacon
and hams they could make up, with all young chickens in spring; but
they were a set of poor wretches, and we had nothing but misfortunes
with them, always breaking and running away. This, Sir Murtagh and
my lady said, was all their former landlord Sir Patrick's fault, who let
'em all get the half year's rent into arrear; there was something in that to
be sure. But Sir Murtagh was as much the contrary way; for let alone
making English tenants[G] of them, every soul, he was always driving

and driving, and pounding and pounding, and canting[H] and canting,
and replevying and replevying, and he made a good living of
trespassing cattle; there was always some tenant's pig, or horse, or cow,
or calf, or goose, trespassing, which was so great a gain to Sir Murtagh,
that he did not like to hear me talk of repairing fences. Then his heriots
and duty-work[I] brought him in something, his turf was cut, his
potatoes set and dug, his hay brought home, and, in short, all the work
about his house done for nothing; for in all our leases there were strict
clauses heavy with penalties, which Sir Murtagh knew well how to
enforce; so many days' duty work of man and horse, from every tenant,
he was to have, and had, every year; and when a man vexed him, why
the finest day he could pitch on, when the cratur was getting in his own
harvest, or thatching his cabin, Sir Murtagh made it a principle to call
upon him and his horse; so he taught 'em all, as he said, to know the
law of landlord and tenant. As for law, I believe no man, dead or alive,
ever loved it so well as Sir Murtagh. He had once sixteen suits pending
at a time, and I never saw him so much himself; roads, lanes, bogs,
wells, ponds, eel-wires, orchards, trees, tithes, vagrants, gravelpits,
sandpits, dunghills, and nuisances, every thing upon the face of the
earth furnished him good matter for a suit. He used to boast that he had
a lawsuit for every letter in the alphabet. How I used to wonder to see
Sir Murtagh in the midst of the papers in his office! Why he could
hardly turn about for them. I made bold to shrug my shoulders once in
his presence, and thanked my stars I was not born a gentleman to so
much toil and trouble; but Sir Murtagh took me up short with his old
proverb, "learning is better than house or land." Out of forty-nine suits
which he had, he never lost one but seventeen;[J] the rest he gained
with costs, double costs, treble costs sometimes; but even that did not
pay. He was a very learned man in the law, and had the character of it;
but how it was I can't tell, these suits that he carried cost him a power
of money; in the end he sold some hundreds a year of the family estate;
but he was a very learned man in the law, and I know nothing of the
matter, except having a great regard for the family; and I could not help
grieving when he sent me to post up notices of the sale of the
fee-simple of the lands and appurtenances of Timoleague. "I know,
honest Thady," says he, to comfort me, "what I'm about better than you
do;