"You are well acquainted with the language, I believe?" continued he.
"I can read and speak English tolerably well, sir."
"But I speak of Irish, boy—of the language which is spoken by your fellow-countrymen," said he, rebukingly.
"I have always heard, sir, that this has fallen into disuse, and is little known, save among the peasantry in a few secluded districts."
He seemed impatient as I said this, and referred once more to the paper before him, from whose minutes he appeared to have been speaking.
"You must be in error, boy. I find here that the nation is devotedly attached to its traditions and its literature, and feels no injury deeper than the insulting substitution of a foreign tongue for their own noble language."
"Of myself I know nothing, sir; the little I have learned was acquired when a mere child."
"Ah, then you probably forget, or may never have heard the fact; but it is as I tell you. This, which I hold here, is the report of a highly-distinguished and most influential personage, who lays great stress upon the circumstance. I am sorry, Tiernay, very sorry, that you are unacquainted with the language."
He continued for some minutes to brood over this disappointment, and, at last, returned to the paper before him.
"The geography of the country—what knowledge have you on that subject?"