‘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 herself like, it was hard for Sir Condy himself to know her again till she spoke; but when she says, ’It’s Judy M’Quirk, please your honour; don’t you remember her?’

‘Oh, Judy, is it you?’ says his honour.  ’Yes, sure, I remember you very well; but you’re greatly altered, Judy.’

‘Sure it’s time for me,’ says she.  ’And I think your honour, since I seen you last—­but that’s a great while ago—­is altered too.’

‘And with reason, Judy,’ says Sir Condy, fetching a sort of a sigh.  ’But how’s this, Judy?’ he goes on.  ’I take it a little amiss of you that you were not at my wake last night.’

‘Ah, don’t be being jealous of that,’ says she; ’I didn’t hear a sentence of your honour’s wake till it was all over, or it would have gone hard with me but I would have been at it, sure; but I was forced to go ten miles up the country three days ago to a wedding of a relation of my own’s, and didn’t get home till after the wake was over.  But,’ says she, ‘it won’t be so, I hope, the next time, please your honour.’ [At the coronation of one of our monarchs the King complained of the confusion which happened in the procession.  ’The great officer who presided told his Majesty that ‘it should not be so next time.’]