Castle Rackrent

“ His view of literature was purely utilitarian; to convey practical lessons was the business of all superior persons, more particularly of an Edgeworth. In Castle Rackrent his suggestions and comments are happily relegated to the position of notes; in the other books they form part and parcel of the novel. The Absentee, for instance, contains admirable dialogue and many life-like figures; but the scheme of the story conveys a sense of unreality. Every fault or vice has its counterbalancing virtue represented. ”

“ That class of men who get introduced into gentlemen’s families; and who, by plodding, hoarding, fawning, and flattering the follies of their masters, make fortunes themselves, ruin, and then trample upon their employers, were never better represented than in the person of Mr Abimelech Henley. The steward in Castle Rackrent is not so very a knave by half.—The character of the Count de Beaunoir, though short, is managed with a great deal of humour and feeling. Mac Fane, the keeper of the madhouse, etc. are strong and real portraits. ”

“ First and foremost, they had the curses of the country: and Sir Murtagh Rackrent, the new heir, in the next place, on account of this affront to the body, refused to pay a shilling of the debts, in which he was countenanced by all the best gentlemen of property, and others of his acquaintance; Sir Murtagh alleging in all companies that he all along meant to pay his father’s debts of honour, but the moment the law was taken of him, there was an end of honour to be sure. It was whispered (but none but the enemies of the family believe it) ”

“ Sir Condy Rackrent for ever!' was the first thing I hears in the morning, and the same and nothing else all day, and not a soul sober only just when polling, enough to give their votes as became 'em, and to stand the browbeating of the lawyers, who came tight enough upon us; and many of our freeholders were knocked off; having never a freehold that they could safely swear to, and Sir Condy was not willing to have any man perjure himself for his sake, as was done on the other side, God knows ”

“ One can scarcely imagine anything more dream-like than this tiny little town of Runkel, slumbering away in spite of the screams and cries of Time, like some forgotten relic of the Middle Ages, with its crooked streets and passages, silent as the dead, and grass-grown, rugged cobble-stones, beneath the shadow of the ancient rock-built castle of Runkelstein, the ancestral seat of the Princes of Wied. ”

“ Almost as far as the eye could reach, the land and all that stood on it—timber, meadow, homestead, hamlet—belonged to Rockhurst, fit appanage to those massy castle walls that rose clear-cut against the blue air, in all the majesty of ancient power. And as he gazed, Lionel Ratcliffe’s heart grew sombre even as his glance. A keen-faced man, old-looking for his thirty years, somewhat below the middle height, with marked features, cold blue eyes and thin lips that betrayed the working of an intellect as sharp as the steel that hung by his side. ”

“ The land, in general, seems well cultivated and enclosed—but in some places the enclosures seem too small, and the ridges too crooked, for proper farming. We pass two gentlemen's seats, called White Castle and Red Castle; the last a large good-looking mansion, with trees, and a pretty vale sloping upwards from the sea. As we approach the termination of the Lough, the ground becomes more rocky and barren, and the cultivation interrupted by impracticable patches, which have been necessarily abandoned. Come in view of Green Castle, a large ruinous castle, said to have belonged to the MacWilliams. ”

“ Rochester Castle—the stately ruins of which, hard by the Medway, still attest its ancient grandeur, and recall the days when it stood in feudal pride, guarded by moat, and rampart, and lofty battlements—was deemed a place of immense importance; and Robert Fitzwalter and his confederates had intrusted it to the keeping of William Albini, Earl of Arundel, a great noble whose family had long maintained feudal state at Castle Rising, in Norfolk, and whose ancestor had acquired Arundel with the hand of Adelicia of Louvaine, the young widow of Henry Beauclerc. ”

“ Leaving this lovely town, the Usk makes more directly for the sea. A few miles away to the east, in the valley of one of its tributaries, are the ruins of Raglan Castle, standing on a richly-wooded eminence not far from the village of the same name. It was begun not earlier than the reign of Henry V., and apparently not finished until the time of Charles I.; and so strong was it that it had the distinction of being one of the last fortresses in the kingdom to surrender to Cromwell’s men. ”

“ At the nearer end of the vale, and immediately under the eye, the venerable ruins of Penrith Castle crest a round green hill. These are of pale red stone, and stand in detached masses; but have little that is picturesque in their appearance, time having spared neither tower, or gateway, and not a single tree giving shade, or force, to the shattered walls. The ground about the castle is broken into grassy knolls, and only cattle wander over the desolated tract. ”

“ The situation and the difficulty of access had thus long marked Rathlin as a place of refuge for Scotch or Irish fugitives, and besides its natural strength it was respected as a sanctuary, having been the abode at one time of Saint Columba. A mass of broken masonry on a cliff overhanging the sea is a remnant of the castle, in which Robert Bruce watched the leap of the legendary spider. To this island, when Essex entered Antrim, Macconnell and the other Scots had sent their wives and children, their aged, and their sick, for safety. ”

“ There are in the street facing the cathedral the ruins of a much more ancient castle; a proper feudal fortress belonging to the Earls of Orkney, but called the King's Castle. It appears to have been very strong, being situated near the harbor, and having, as appears from the fragments, very massive walls. While the wicked Earl Patrick was in confinement, one of his natural sons defended this castle to extremity against the King's troops, and only surrendered when it was nearly a heap of ruins, and then under condition he should not be brought in evidence against his father. ”

“ In the interior of the island are farmers and farmers’ wives, who evidently have cash to spare. As we skirt along the coast we see here and there a grey castle in ruins, telling of a time and manners and customs long since passed away. At one castle—that of Moy, for instance—the laird was a real knight and chief, and behaved as such. One part of the castle was built over a precipice, and in the wall was a niche in which a man could just stand, and barely that; a man or woman charged with a crime was placed in that niche ”

“ There is, perhaps, not a single object in the scene, that interrupts the solemn tone of feeling, impressed by its general characters of profound solitude, greatness and awful wildness. Castle Rigg is the central point of three vallies, that dart immediately under it from the eye, and whose mountains form part of an amphitheatre, which is completed by those of Derwentwater, in the west, and by the precipices of Skiddaw and Saddleback, close on the north. The hue, which pervades all these mountains, is that of dark heath, or rock ”

“ The Church possesses a good spire, and is conspicuously situated. But though outwardly picturesque, it has little of interest within. Note, however, (1) piscina in chancel, (2) oak screen, (3) carved pulpit, (4) panel and canopied effigy over S. porch. There is also a shallow font (temp. Henry VI.) on a pedestal of curious design.
Castle Neroche, locally known as Castle Ratch, a remarkable earthwork of problematical origin, 7 m. S. of Taunton. It crowns the edge of a precipitous hillside, over which runs the main road to Chard. ”

“ John meanwhile was summoning the earls and barons of England to meet him at Portsmouth at Whitsuntide (May 13) , ready with horses and arms to accompany him over sea. The earls held a meeting at Leicester, and thence unanimously sent him word that they would not go with him “unless he gave them back their rights. For the king, following ill counsel, was demanding their castles of them; and beginning with William of Aubigny, he demanded of him the castle of Belvoir. William satisfied him by giving him his son as a hostage, and thus kept his castle.” ”

“ When the castle dolls drove out or walked in their garden, the instant they caught sight of one of the Racketty-Packettys they turned up their noses and sniffed aloud, and several times the Duchess said she would remove because the neighborhood was absolutely low. They all scorned the Racketty-Packettys—they just scorned them.
One moonlight night Lady Patsy was sitting at her window and she heard a whistle in the garden. When she peeped out carefully, there stood Peter Piper waving his ragged cap at her, and he had his rope ladder under his arm. ”

“ At this moment a shrill whistle was heard to resound along the heath.
"Hark!" said Ratcliffe, "he calls me—Miss Vere, return home, and leave unbolted the postern-door of the garden; to that which opens on the back-stairs I have a private key."
A second whistle was heard yet more shrill and prolonged than the first.
"I come, I come," said Ratcliffe; and, setting spurs to his horse, rode over the heath in the direction of the Recluse's hut. Miss Vere returned to the castle, the mettle of the animal on which she rode, and her own anxiety of mind, combining to accelerate her journey. ”

“ Peter Piper ran to the window and looked out and then ran back grinning.
“It’s the nurse rolling up the arm-chair before the house to hide it, so that it won’t disgrace the castle. Hooray! Hooray! If they don’t see us they will forget all about us and we shall not be burned up at all. Our nice old Racketty-Packetty House will be left alone and we can enjoy ourselves more than ever—because we sha’n’t be bothered with Cynthia—Hello! let’s all join hands and have a dance.” ”

“ Rachel suddenly shook her fist at it, her cotton-gloved fist, and cried out, "You needn't glower down like that, you hideous old relic of an evil past! There's a great, wide, rich country across the seas, that never heard of such as you, that never had a feudal castle in it, that isn't darkened by a single hateful shadow such as you still throw down on us here." ”

“ The moonlight lit the castle wall and the dangling rope and showed the black shadow of the moat, a terrific sight that made Rochefort’s stomach crawl and his throat close. This was no castle wall which he had to descend. It was like looking over the cliff at the world’s end or one of those terrific bastions of cloud which one sees sometimes banking the sky before a storm. The moonlight it was that lent this touch of vastness to the prospect below, a prospect that made the sweat stand out on the palms of Rochefort’s hands and his soul to contract on itself. ”

“ We thought of the Englishman at Paris, who maintained ‘que parler c’étoit gâter la conversation.’ After visiting the Lancasterian school I mentioned,—where one person teaches sixty girls, some of whom come from the remotest parts of Lord D——’s estate, many miles, daily—I rode to Rochester to see the fine ruin of the old castle. What has not been destroyed by violence stands like a rock, from the time of William the Conqueror. The remains of the eating-hall, with its colossal pillars united by richly ornamented Saxon arches, are singularly fine. ”

“ The manor, however, has from the time of Lewis, Lord Rockingham, been vested in the Watson family.
Leland describes the castle as presenting the following appearance in his time: "The castelle of Rokingham standith on the toppe of an hille, right stately, and hath a mighty diche, and bullewarks agayne withoute the diche. The utter waulles of it yet stond. The kepe is exceeding fair and strong, and in the waulles be certein strong towers. The lodgings that were within the area of the castelle be discovered and faul to ruine. ”

“ In the village of Corn is the picturesque château of the family of Beduer built after the abandonment of the place by the English. It is now occupied by poor families. A little farther down the valley is the castle of Roquefort, which was also annexed by the Captain. It is near the Church of S. Laurent, where was a village that was destroyed by the Company. The church itself was blown up later by the Huguenots. Roquefort is dominated by a precipice, at the foot of which lies a huge mass of rock that has broken off from the cliff, and on this rock a castle has been erected. ”

“ The land on the southern bank of the entrance slopes away into a sort of promontory, at the extremity of which are the very imperfect ruins of the castle of Ardtornish, to which the Lords of the Isles summoned parliaments, and from whence one of them dated a treaty with the Crown of England as an independent Prince. These ruins are seen to most advantage from the south, where they are brought into a line with one high fragment towards the west predominating over the rest. ”

“ Right ahead of us the Castle, the rock whereon it was pinnacled, and the village, huddled on a little plateau at its base, stood out from the hillside like a black stain upon the snow. A carriage-way, diverging from our road a hundred yards farther on, ran up towards it in long zigzags, and to this point we advanced.
"Look!" suddenly cried Larke. "We are not the first to visit the worthy Count to-day."
From both directions carriages or sledges had turned into this track, so that the snow at its entrance was trampled by the hoofs of horses, and cut by intersecting curves. ”

“ Landeck is a prettily situated and important little town in a wide bend of the Inn Thal, having a fine prospect of environing mountain summits occupying both sides of the river and dominated by Castle Landeck, whose grim, square, and battlemented tower forms a striking feature of the landscape. Another prominent building, which at once strikes one on approaching the place either by road or rail, is the fine fifteenth-century parish church standing on the slope of the hill, which is crowned by the castle. ”