with a like delicacy.'

'What will your folks talk, then? I can't suppose they care for books,
art, or the drama. There is no society, so there can be no gossip. If that
yonder be the cabin of one of your tenants, I'll certainly not start the
question of farming.'

'There are poor on every estate,' said Dick curtly.

'Now what sort of a rent does that fellow pay--five pounds a year?'

'More likely five-and-twenty or thirty shillings.'

'By Jove, I'd like to set up house in that fashion, and make love to some
delicately-nurtured miss, win her affections, and bring her home to such a
spot. Wouldn't that be a touchstone of affection, Dick?'

'If I could believe you were in earnest, I'd throw you neck and heels into
that bog-hole.'

'Oh, if you would!' cried he, and there was a ring of truthfulness in his
voice now there could be no mistaking. Half-ashamed of the emotion his
idle speech had called up, and uncertain how best to treat the emergency,
Kearney said nothing, and Atlee walked on for miles without a word.

'You can see the house now. It tops the trees yonder,' said Dick.

'That is Kilgobbin Castle, then?' said Joe slowly.

'There's not much of castle left about it. There is a square block of a
tower, and you can trace the moat and some remains of outworks.'

'Shall I make you a confession, Dick? I envy you all that! I envy you what
smacks of a race, a name, an ancestry, a lineage. It's a great thing to be
able to "take up the running," as folks say, instead of making all the race
yourself; and there's one inestimable advantage in it, it rescues you from
all indecent haste about asserting your station. You feel yourself to be a
somebody and you've not hurried to proclaim it. There now, my boy, if you'd
have said only half as much as that on the score of your family, I'd have
called you an arrant snob. So much for consistency.'

'What you have said gave me pleasure, I'll own that.'

'I suppose it was you planted those trees there. It was a nice thought, and
makes the transition from the bleak bog to the cultivated land more easy
and graceful. Now I see the castle well. It's a fine portly mass against
the morning sky, and I perceive you fly a flag over it.'

'When the lord is at home.'

'Ay, and by the way, do you give him his title while talking to him here?'

'The tenants do, and the neighbours and strangers do as they please about
it.'

'Does he like it himself?'

'If I was to guess, I should pe