eight days. The ship that carried the Borrows was old and crazy,
constantly missing stays and shipping seas, until it seemed that only
by a miracle she escaped "from being dashed upon the foreland."

After a few days' rest at Cork, the "city of contradictions," where
wealth and filth jostled one another in the public highways and
"boisterous shouts of laughter were heard on every side," the
regiment marched off in two divisions for Clonmel in Tipperary.
Walking beside his father, who was in command of the second division,
and holding on to his stirrup-leather, George found a new country
opening out before him. On one occasion, as they were passing
through a village of low huts, "that seemed to be inhabited solely by
women and children," he went up to an old beldam who sat spinning at
the door of one of the hovels and asked for some water. She
"appeared to consider for a moment, then tottering into her hut,
presently reappeared with a small pipkin of milk, which she offered .
. . with a trembling hand." When the lad tendered payment she
declined the money, and patted his face, murmuring some
unintelligible words. Obviously there was nothing in the boy's
nature now that appeared strange to simple-minded folk. Probably the
intercourse with other boys at Edinburgh and Norwich had been
beneficial in its effect. Keenly interested in everything around
him, George fell to speculating as to whether he could learn Irish
and speak to the people in their own tongue.

At Clonmel the Borrows lodged with an Orangeman, who had run out of
his house as the Adjutant rode by at the head of his men, and
proceeded to welcome him with flowery volubility. On the advice of
his host Captain Borrow sent George to a Protestant school, where he
met the Irish boy Murtagh, who figures so largely in Lavengro and The