Stories of Ireland Author:Maria Edgeworth Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: STORIES OF IRELAND. Castle Rackrent. Monday Morning. Having, out of friendship for the family, upon whose estate, praised be Heaven! I and mine have... more » lived rent-free time out of mind, voluntarily undertaken to publish the Memoirs Of The Rackuent Family, I think it my duty to say a few words, in the first place, concerning myself. My real name is Thady Quirk, though in the family I have always been known by no other than " Honest Thady," afterward, in the time of Sir Murtagh, deceased, I remember to hear them calling me " Old Thady," and now I've come to " Poor Thady ; " for I wear a long greatcoat 1 winter and summer, which is very handy, as I never put my arms into the sleeves; they are as good as new, though come Holantide next I've had it these seven years : it holds on by a single button round my neck, cloak fashion. To look at me, you would hardly think " Poor Thady " was the father of Attorney Quirk; he is a high gentleman, and never minds what poor 1 The cloak, or mantle, as described by Thady, is of high antiquity. Spenser, in his " View of the State of Ireland," proves that it is not, as some have imagined, peculiarly derived from the Scythians, but that umost nations of the world anciently nsed the mantle; for the Jews used it, as you may read of Elias's mantle,« less