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?'

'All,' says I.

'All entirely?' says she again.

'All entirely' says I.

'Then,' says she, 'that's a great shame; but don't be telling Jason what
I say.'

'And what is it you say?' cries Sir Condy, leaning over betwixt us,
which made Judy start greatly. 'I know the time when Judy M'Quirk would
never have stayed so long talking at the door and I in the house.'

'Oh!' says Judy, 'for shame, Sir Condy; times are altered since then,
and it's my Lady Rackrent you ought to be thinking of.'

'And why should I be thinking of her, that's not thinking of me now?'
says Sir Condy.

'No matter for that,' says Judy, very properly; 'it's time you should
be thinking of her, if ever you mean to do it at all, for don't you know
she's ly