[18] It is generally believed among the common people of this part of Ireland, that when the soul leaves its earthly tenement, the first thing it does is to travel over every spot of ground that the body did while living; during which time the tie between it and its mortal remains is not entirely severed; and for that reason they will not touch the body for a certain time after life is extinct. CHAPTER IX. CHANGE OF QUARTERS. We had been about nine months here when we got the route to march to Kilkenny, a distance of about forty miles, where we were destined to relieve the forty-second regiment, ordered on service. We parted with the people of Wexford with regret, and on their part with every demonstration of sorrow. Many of our men had married while in the town, and every thing during our stay conspired in a degree to identify us with the inhabitants. We were escorted some miles by half the people of the town. A meeting was called of the magistrates and principal inhabitants, and an address drawn up, flattering alike to our feelings and pride, which was published in the principal newspapers. Thus we entered Kilkenny in the best possible disposition to be on friendly terms with its inhabitants, but we soon found that we had got a different kind of people to deal with. The sneers and oblique hints, the evident wish to quarrel, which they evinced when any of our men came in contact with them in the public-house, convinced us that we could never expect to be on the same terms with them as we had been with the inhabitants of Wexford. The county being almost continually in a disturbed state, it was found necessary to have a large force distributed throughout its extent, to counteract their lawless schemes, and caused the duty to be particularly unpleasant. On our part it was not a little enhanced by the envious egotism and gasconading of the corps whom we relieved,—a corps that has been flattered by the country into a belief that they are the flower of the British army. To hear themselves speak, they were the saviours of the nation,—their exertions, wherever they had been engaged, had turned the tide of battle in our favour,—and, without the gallant forty-second, the army would be like a watch without a mainspring.