When his sorrowful companions brought home the body of poor Ralph, they found old Deborah repeating, in a low, shrill, and, as they afterwards said, unearthly tone, the rhymes of Matty Drew: but the last words of the third line died away on her lips; and when some of the family ceased, for a moment, to gaze on the livid face of Ralph, and turned toward the kitchen-hearth, they saw that Dame Deborah was dead in her chair.
On the second anniversary of their wedding-day, the Honourable Charles Caddy, and Lady Letitia, his high-born and beautiful wife, entertained a large party of guests at Caddy Castle. Until a few months previously to this event, the old building had been left nearly desolate, for a period of eleven or twelve years: a few domestics were its only inhabitants, except old Squire Caddy Caddy, its unfortunate owner, who had lost his wits, and was confined in one of its comfortable turrets, under the care of a couple of stout and wary keepers.
The castle had recently been put in order for the reception of the Honourable Charles Caddy, a distant relation of, but next heir to, the lunatic, who was entrusted with the care of Caddy Caddy's property. He came down to Caddy Castle, with a determination of making himself popular in the neighbourhood; and began by giving invitations to all the gentlemen and ladies of respectability, within a circuit of several miles. A number of his own personal friends, and those of Lady Letitia, had followed them, shortly after their departure from town, to spend the Christmas holidays at Caddy Castle; so that the ancient edifice was by far more gay than it had ever been, even during the time when the once jovial Caddy Caddy was lord paramount in the halls of his ancestors.
Among the guests assembled in honour of the day, was Mr. Caddy Cuddle, a quiet elderly bachelor, of small fortune, related, on his mother's side, to the Caddy family, who had been one of Caddy Caddy's most intimate associates, in former times. By order of the medical gentlemen who attended on Caddy Caddy, Mr. Cuddle, as well as all his old friends, had been denied access to the lunatic, from very proper motives, at the outset of his confinement Caddy Cuddle's cottage was eleven miles distant; the Castle had lost its chief attraction; and this was the first time he had been near it, for several years.