It's a bad language.' 'A queer tongue,' said I; 'I wonder if I could learn it.' 'Learn it!' said my father; 'what should you learn it for ?--however, I am not afraid of that.

It is not like Scotch, no person can learn it, save those who are born to it, and even in Ireland the respectable people do not speak it, only the wilder sort, like those we have passed.' Within a day or two we had reached a tall range of mountains running north and south, which I was told were those of Tipperary; along the skirts of these we proceeded till we came to a town, the principal one of these regions.

It was on the bank of a beautiful river, which separated it from the mountains.

It was rather an ancient place, and might contain some ten thousand inhabitants--I found that it was our destination; there were extensive barracks at the farther end, in which the corps took up its quarters; with respect to ourselves, we took lodgings in a house which stood in the principal street.
'You never saw more elegant lodgings than these, captain,' said the master of the house, a tall, handsome, and athletic man, who came up whilst our little family were seated at dinner late in the afternoon of the day of our arrival; 'they beat anything in this town of Clonmel.

I do not let them for the sake of interest, and to none but gentlemen in the army, in order that myself and my wife, who is from Londonderry, may have the advantage of pleasant company, genteel company; ay, and Protestant company, captain.