our
to be sure. It was whispered (but none but the enemies of the family
believe it) that this was all a sham seizure to get quit of the debts
which he had bound himself to pay in honour.

It's a long time ago, there's no saying how it was, but this for
certain, the new man did not take at all after the old gentleman;
the cellars were never filled after his death, and no open house, or
anything as it used to be; the tenants even were sent away without their
whisky [See GLOSSARY 4]. I was ashamed myself, and knew not what to say
for the honour of the family; but I made the best of a bad case, and
laid it all at my lady's door, for I did not like her anyhow, nor
anybody else; she was of the family of the Skinflints, and a widow; it
was a strange match for Sir Murtagh; the people in the country thought
he demeaned himself greatly [See GLOSSARY 5], but I said nothing; I
knew how it was. Sir Murtagh was a great lawyer, and looked to the great
Skinflint estate; there, however, he overshot himself; for though one of
the co-heiresses, he was never the better for her, for she outlived him
many's the long day--he could not see that to be sure when he married
her. I must say for her, she made him the best of wives, being a very
notable, stirring woman, and looking close to everything. But I always
suspected she had Scotch blood in her veins; anything else I could
have looked over in her, from a regard to the family. She was a strict
observer, for self and servants, of Lent, and all fast-days, but not
holidays. One of the maids having fainted three times the last day of
Lent, to keep soul and body together, we put a morsel of roast beef into
her mouth, which came from Sir Murtagh's dinner, who never fasted, not
he; but somehow or other it unfortunately reached my lady's ears, and
the priest of the parish had a complaint made of it the next day, and
the poor girl was forced, as soon as she could walk, to do penance for
it, before she could get any peace or absolution, in the house or out
of it. However, my lady was very charitable in her own way. She had a
charity school for poor children, where they were taught to read and
write gratis, and where they were kept well to spinning gratis for my
lady in 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