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[21] and smashed, and they lifted her into a cabin hard by, and the maid was found after, where she had been thrown, in the gripe of the ditch, her cap and bonnet all full of bog water, and they say my lady can’t live any way.’ 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?” said 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 lying for death?” “My Lady Rackrent!” says Sir Condy, in a surprise; “why it’s but two days since we parted, as you very well know, Thady, in her full health and spirits, and she and her maid along with her going to Mount Juliet’s Town on her jaunting car.” “She’ll never ride no more on her jaunting car,” said Judy, “for it has been the death of her, sure enough.” “And is she dead then?” says his honour. “As good as dead, I hear,” says Judy; “but there’s Thady here has just learnt the whole truth of the story as I had it, and it is fitter he or any body else should be telling it you than I, Sir Condy: I must be going home to the childer.” But he stops her, but rather from civility in him, as I could see very plainly, than any thing else, for Judy was, as his honour remarked at her first coming in, greatly changed, and