Very little has happened in the parish within the last thirty-five years with which he is not acquainted." "I like the man," replied the other, "from your description of him." "At all events, you would if you knew him," replied Birney.

"He is both a good priest and a good man." He then directed him to the worthy clergy-man's residence, which was not more than a mile and a half from the town, and the stranger lost little time in reaching it.
On approaching the house, he was much struck with the extraordinary air of neatness, cleanliness, and comfort, which characterized not only the house itself, but everything about it.

A beautiful garden facing the south, stretched down to the left, as you approached the elegant little whitewashed dwelling, which, placed on a green knoll, literally shone for miles over the beautiful and serene country by which it was surrounded.

Below it, to the south, between firm green banks and meadows, wound a beautiful river, and to the north rose one of the most picturesque hills, probably, in the kingdom; at the hip of which was a gloomy, precipitous glen, which, for wildness and solitary grandeur, is unrivalled by anything of the kind we have seen.

On the top of the hill is a cave, supposed to be Druidical, over which an antiquarian would dream half a life; and, indeed, this is not to be wondered at, inasmuch as he would find there some of the most distinctly traced Ogham characters to be met with in any part of the kingdom.
On entering the house, our nameless friend found the good priest in what a stranger might be apt to consider a towering passion.
"You lazy bosthoon," said he, to a large, in fact to a huge young fellow, a servant, "was it to allow the pigs, the destructive vagabonds, to turn up my beautiful bit of lawn that I undertook to give you house-room, wages, and feeding--eh?
and a bitther business to me the same feeding is.