'My lady,' says I, as she crossed the hall, 'there would have been fifty times as many; but for fear of the horses, and frightening your ladyship, Jason and I forbid them, please your honour.'
With that she looked at me a little bewildered.
'Will I have a fire lighted in the state-room to-night?' was the next question I put to her, but never a word she answered; so Iconcluded she could not speak a word of English, and was from foreign parts. The short and the long of it was, I couldn't tell what to make of her; so I left her to herself, and went straight down to the servants' hall to learn something for certain about her. Sir Kit's own man was tired, but the groom set him a-talking at last, and we had it all out before ever I closed my eyes that night. The bride might well be a great fortune--she was a JEWISH by all accounts, who are famous for their great riches. I had never seen any of that tribe or nation before, and could only gather that she spoke a strange kind of English of her own, that she could not abide pork or sausages, and went neither to church or mass. Mercy upon his honour's poor soul, thought I;what will become of him and his, and all of us, with his heretic blackamoor at the head of the Castle Rackrent estate? I never slept a wink all night for thinking of it; but before the servants I put my pipe in my mouth, and kept my mind to myself, for I had a great regard for the family; and after this, when strange gentlemen's servants came to the house, and would begin to talk about the bride, I took care to put the best foot foremost, and passed her for a nabob in the kitchen, which accounted for her dark complexion and everything.
The very morning after they came home, however, I saw plain enough how things were between Sir Kit and my lady, though they were walking together arm in arm after breakfast, looking at the new building and the improvements.
'Old Thady,' said my master, just as he used to do, 'how do you do?'
'Very well, I thank your honour's honour,' said I; but I saw he was not well pleased, and my heart was in my mouth as I walked along after him.
'Is the large room damp, Thady?~ said his honour.
'Oh damp, your honour! how should it be but as dry as a bone,'
says I, 'after all the fires we have kept in it day and night?
It's the barrack-room your honour's talking on [See GLOSSARY20].'
'And what is a barrack-room, pray, my dear?' were the first words I ever heard out of my lady's lips.
'No matter, my dear,' said he, and went on talking to me, ashamed-like I should witness her ignorance. To be sure, to hear her talk one might have taken her for an innocent [See GLOSSARY21], for it was, 'What's this, Sir Kit? and what's that, Sir Kit?' all the way we went. To be sure, Sir Kit had enough to do to answer her.
'And what do you call that, Sir Kit ?' said she; 'that-- that looks like a pile of black bricks, pray, Sir Kit?'
'My turf-stack, my dear,' said my master, and bit his lip.
Where have you lived, my lady, all your life, not to know a turf-stack when you see it? thought I; but I said nothing. Then by and by she takes out her glass, and begins spying over the country.
'And what's all that black swamp out yonder, Sir Kit?' says she.
'My bog, my dear,' says he, and went on whistling.
'It's a very ugly prospect, my dear,' says she.
'You don't see it, my dear,' says he, 'for we've planted it out;when the trees grow up in summer-time--' says he.
'Where are the trees,' said she, 'my dear?' still looking through her glass.
'You are blind, my dear,' says he; 'what are these under your eyes?'
'These shrubs?' said she.
'Trees,' said he.
'Maybe they are what you call trees in Ireland, my dear,' said she; 'but they are not a yard high, are they?'
'They were planted out but last year, my lady,' says I, to soften matters between them, for I saw she was going the way to make his honour mad with her: 'they are very well grown for their age, and you'll not see the bog of Allyballycarrick-o'shaughlin at-all-at-all through the skreen, when once the leaves come out.
But, my lady, you must not quarrel with any part or parcel of Allyballycarricko'shaughlin, for you don't know how many hundred years that same bit of bog has been in the family; we would not part with the bog of Allyballycarricko'shaughlin upon no account at all; it cost the late Sir Murtagh two hundred good pounds to defend his title to it and boundaries against the O'Learys, who cut a road through it.'
Now one would have thought this would have been hint enough for my lady, but she fell to laughing like one out of their right mind, and made me say the name of the bog over, for her to get it by heart, a dozen times; then she must ask me how to spell it, and what was the meaning of it in English--Sir Kit standing by whistling all the while. I verily believed she laid the corner-stone of all her future misfortunes at that very instant; but Isaid no more, only looked at Sir Kit.
There were no balls, no dinners, no doings; the country was all disappointed--Sir Kit's gentleman said in a whisper to me, it was all my lady's own fault, because she was so obstinate about the cross.
'What cross?' says I; 'is it about her being a heretic?'
'Oh, no such matter,' says he; 'my master does not mind her heresies, but her diamond cross it's worth I can't tell you how much, and she has thousands of English pounds concealed in diamonds about her, which she as good as promised to give up to my master before he married; but now she won't part with any of them, and she must take the consequences.'
