"Eh?" says Lady Rodney.
"Coolnagurtheen."
"I always said you were clever," says his mother, languidly; "now I believe it. I don't think if I lived forever I should be able to pronounce such a sad word as that. Do—do the natives speak like that?"
"I'll tell you when I come back," says Geoffrey,—"if I ever do."
"So stupid of your uncle to leave you a property in such a country!" says Lady Rodney, discontentedly. "But very like him, certainly. He was never happy unless he was buying land in some uninhabitable place. There was that farm in Wallachia,—your cousin Jane nearly died of chagrin when she found it was left to her, and the lawyers told her she should take it, whether she liked it or not. Wallachia! I don't know where it is, but I am sure it is close to the Bulgarian atrocities!"
"Our 'pretty Jane,' on occasions, can talk as much nonsense as—as any woman I ever met," says Geoffrey,—the hesitation being full of filial reverence; "and that may be called, I think, unqualified praise."
"Better give up the Irish plan, dear, and come with Nichols and me to the Nugents. They are easy-going people, and will suit you."
"Free-and-easy-going would be a more appropriate term, from all I have heard."
"The shooting there is capital," says his mother, turning a deaf ear to his muttered interruption, "and I don't believe there is anything in Ireland, not even birds."
"There are landlords, at least; and very excellent shooting they are, if all accounts be true," says Geoffrey, with a grin,—"to say nothing of the partridge and grouse. Besides, it will be an experience; and a man should say 'how d'ye do?' to his tenants sometimes."
"If you are going to preach to me on that subject, of course I have nothing more to say. But I wish you would come with me to the Nugents."
"My dear mother, there is hardly anything I wouldn't do for you; but the Nugent scheme wouldn't suit at all. That girl of the Cheviots is sure to be there,—you know how fond Bessie Nugent is of her?—and I know she is bent on marrying me."
"Nonsense! Would you have me believe you are afraid of her?"
"I am afraid of her; I was never so afraid of any one before. I have made it the business of my life to avoid her ever since last New Year's Day, when some kind fellow told me it was leap-year. You know I never yet said 'No' to any one, and I shouldn't dare begin by saying it to Miss Cheviot. She has such a stony glare, and such a profusion of nose!"
"And a profusion of gold, too," says Lady Rodney, with a sigh.
"I hope she has, poor soul: she will want it," says Geoffrey, feelingly; and then he falls to whistling the "Two Obadiahs" softly, yet with a relish, beneath his breath.
"How long do you intend to banish yourself from civilized life?"
"A month, I dare say. Longer, if I like it; shorter, if I don't. By the by, you told me the other day it was the dream of your life to see me in Parliament, now that 'Old Dick' has decided on leading a sedentary existence,—a very stupid decision on his part, by the way, so clever as he is."
"He is not strong, you see: a little thing knocks him up, and he is too impressionable for a public career. But you are different."
"You think I am not impressionable? Well, time will tell. I shouldn't care about going into the House unless I went there primed and loaded with a real live grievance, Now, why should I not adopt the Irish? Consider the case as it stands: I go and see them; I come home, raving about them and their wretched condition, their cruel landlords, their noble endurance, magnificent physique, patient suffering, honest revenge, and so forth. By Jove! I feel as if I could do it already, even before I've seen them," says Mr. Rodney, with an irreverent laugh.
"Well don't go to Dublin, at all events," says her mother, plaintively. "It's wretched form."
"Is it? I always heard it was rather a jolly sort of little place, once you got into it—well."
"What a partisan you do make!" says Lady Rodney, with a faint laugh. "Perhaps after all we should consider Ireland the end and aim of all things. I dare say when you come back you will be more Irish than the Irish."
"It is a good thing to be in earnest over every matter, however trivial. As I am going to Ireland, you will advise me to study the people, would you not?"
"By all means study them, if you are really bent on this tiresome journey. It may do you good. You will at least be more ready to take my advice another time."
"What a dismal view you take of my trip! Perhaps, in spite of your forebodings, I shall enjoy myself down to the ground, and weep copiously on leaving Irish soil."
"Perhaps. I hope you won't get into a mess there, and make me more unhappy than I am. We are uncomfortable enough without that. You know you are always doing something bizarre,—something rash and uncommon!"
"How nice!" says Geoffrey, with a careless smile. "Your 'faint praise' fails 'to damn'! Why, one is nothing nowadays if not eccentric. Well," moving towards the door, with the fox-terrier at his heels, "I shall start on Monday. That will get me down in time for the 12th. Shall I send you up any birds?"
"Thanks, dear; you are always good," murmurs Lady Rodney, who has ever an eye to the main chance.
"If there are any," says Geoffrey, with a twinkle in his eye.
"If there are any," repeats she, unmoved.
CHAPTER II.
HOW GEOFFREY GOES TO IRELAND AND WHAT HE SEES THERE.
It is early morn. "The first low breath of waking day stirs the wide air." On bush and tree and opening flower the dew lies heavily, like diamonds glistening in the light of the round sun. Thin clouds of pearly haze float slowly o'er the sky to meet its rays; and
Envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Geoffrey, with his gun upon his shoulder, trudges steadily onward rejoicing in the freshness of the morning air.
To his right lies Bantry Bay, that now is spreading itself out in all its glory to catch the delicate hues of the sky above. They rush to greet it, and, sinking deep down into its watery embrace, lie there all day rocked to and fro by the restless ocean.
From the hills the scent of the heather is wafted towards him, filling him with a subtle keen sense of youth and gladness and the absolute joy of living. His good dog is at his heels; a boy—procured from some neighboring cabin, and warranted not to wear out, however long the journey to be undertaken or how many miles to travel—carries his bag beside him.
Game as yet is not exactly plentiful: neither yesterday nor the day before could it be said that birds flock to his gun; there is, indeed, a settled uncertainty as to whether one may or may not have a good day's sport. And yet perhaps this very uncertainty gives an additional excitement to the game.
Here and there a pack is discovered, so unexpectedly as to be doubly welcome. And sometimes a friendly native will tell him of some quiet corner where "his honor" will surely find some birds, "an be able in the evenin' to show raison for his blazin'." It is a somewhat wild life, but a pleasant one, and perhaps, on the whole, Mr. Rodney finds Ireland an agreeable take-in, and the inhabitants of it by no means as eccentric or as bloodthirsty as he has been led to believe. He has read innumerable works on the Irish peasantry, calculated to raise laughter in the breasts of those who claim the Emerald Isle as their own,—works written by people who have never seen Ireland, or, having