‘That we shall see, Judy,’ says his honour, ’and maybe sooner than you think for, for I’ve been very unwell this while past, and don’t reckon anyway I’m long for this world.’

At this Judy takes up the corner of her apron, and puts it first to one eye and then to t’other, being to all appearance in great trouble; and my shister put in her word, and bid his honour have a good heart, for she was sure it was only the gout that Sir Patrick used to have flying about him, and he ought to drink a glass or a bottle extraordinary to keep it out of his stomach; and he promised to take her advice, and sent out for more spirits immediately; and Judy made a sign to me, and I went over to the door to her, and she said, ’I wonder to see Sir Condy so low:  has he heard the news?’

‘What news?’ says I.

‘Didn’t ye hear it, then?’ says she; ’my Lady Rackrent that was is kilt [See glossary 29] and lying for dead, and I don’t doubt but it’s all over with her by this time.’

‘Mercy on us all,’ says I; ‘how was it?’

‘The jaunting-car it was that ran away with her,’ says Judy.  ’I was coming home that same time from Biddy M’Guggin’s marriage, and a great crowd of people too upon the road, coming from the fair of Crookaghnawaturgh, and I sees a jaunting-car standing in the middle of the road, and with the two wheels off and all tattered.  “What’s this?” says I.  “Didn’t ye hear of it?” says they that were looking on; “it’s my Lady Rackrent’s car, that was running away from her husband, and the horse took fright at a carrion that lay across the road, and so ran away with the jaunting-car, and my Lady Rackrent and her maid screaming, and the horse ran with them against a car that was coming from the fair with the boy asleep on it, and the lady’s petticoat hanging out of the jaunting-car caught, and she was dragged I can’t tell you how far upon the road, and it all broken up with the stones just going to be pounded, and one of the road-makers, with his sledge-hammer in his hand, stops the horse at the last; but my Lady Rackrent was all kilt and smashed,” [Kilt and smashed.—­Our author is not here guilty of an anti-climax.  The mere English reader, from a similarity of sound between the words ‘kilt’ and ‘killed,’ might be induced to suppose that their meanings are similar, yet they are not by any means in Ireland synonymous terms.  Thus you may hear a man exclaim, ‘I’m kilt and murdered!’ but he frequently means only that he has received a black eye or a slight contusion.  ‘I’m kilt all over’ means that he is in a worse state than being simply ‘kilt.’  Thus, ‘I’m kilt with the cold,’ is nothing to ’I’m kilt all over with the rheumatism.’] and they lifted her into a cabin hard by, and the maid was found after where she had been thrown in the gripe of a ditch, her cap and bonnet all full of bog water, and they say my lady can’t live anyway.  Thady, pray now is it true what I’m told for sartain, that Sir Condy has made over all to your son Jason?’