e 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 to-night?'
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
['Shebeen-house,' a hedge alehouse. Shebeen properly means weak,
small-beer, taplash.], 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 M'Quirk 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 he