Page:Peak and Prairie (1894).pdf/74

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skirts of the town, the stars were out. He looked up at the great mountain giant that closed the range at the south. Wrapped in darkness and in silence it stood against the starry sky. He tried to imagine that he could perceive a twinkling light from the little cabin, but none was visible. The enchantment of the mountain-side had already withdrawn itself into impregnable shadow.

"Jove!" he said to himself, as he turned into the prosaic town. "If I were an American, or something of that sort, I'd go up there again."

Being, however, a young Irish baronet, as shy of entanglements with his own kind as he was eager for encounters with wild beasts, he very wisely went his way the next morning, and up to this time has never beheld mountain or maiden again.

Over the grave which Sir Bryan dug, there stands to-day a stout pine board, upon which may be read the following legend:

"Here lies the body of
  Brian Boru,
shot through the heart
and subsequently buried
by an agreeable Paddy
of the same name."