But at long last we throve so well that the landlord—God forgive him—took notice of us, and envied us, and asked my father how he came by the penny he had, and wanted him to take more ground at a rack-rent that was more than any Christian ought to pay to another, seeing there was no making it.

Rack′-rent′er, one who exacts or pays rack-rent; Rack′-stick, a stick for stretching a rope; Rack′-tail, a bent arm in a repeating clock connected with the striking mechanism; Rack′work, a strong bar with cogs to correspond with similar cogs on a wheel, which either moves or is moved by the bar.—Live at rack and manger, to live sumptuously and wastefully; On the rack, stretched upon it: tortured by anxiety; Put to the rack, to put to the torture of the rack: to subject to keen suffering.

"It is a serious thing," said Oldacre, "for farmers at rack-rent to begin building houses for their poor; but I am against it, for the sake of the poor themselves."

Thus, how miserable is the condition of the peasants in Russia, of the Irish "rack-rent" tenants!

Rack-rent may be misery, but ejectment is ruin.”