In the Book of the Dun Cow, and in another old book called the Book of Leinster, there is written the great Irish legend called the Tain Bo Chuailgne or the Cattle Raid of Cooley.
Against the hill, and his great heart broke there, And sent a stream of blood down all the slope; And thus, when all the war and Tain had ended, In his own land, 'midst his own hills, he died."*
The old mate, who had acted as chief mourner at the cap tain's funeral, was not particularly pleased at my coming.
But the lieutenant suppressed the man who wished to fist fight, and the tall cap-
tain, flushing at the little fanfare of the red- bearded one, was obliged to look intently at some trees.
"And so they rode and came into a deep valley full of stones, and thereby they saw a fair stream of water; above thereby was the head of the stream, a fair foun-
tain, and three damsels sitting thereby.
"This boy is not a boy at all, but a strong, purposeful man." Cer-
tain vague desires that had been invading her body were swept away and she sat up very straight on the bench.
In consequence of cer-
tain events of no particular significance, except to my- self, I had been appointed to the command only a fortnight before.
In entering upon the duties of a slaveholder, she did not seem to perceive that I sus-
tained to her the relation of a mere chattel, and that for her to treat me as a human being was not only wrong, but dangerously so.
His hat was a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his coat, when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels and had the rearward buttons far down the back; but one suspender supported his trousers; the seat of the trousers bagged low and con-
tained nothing, the fringed legs dragged in the dirt when not rolled up.
The first human beings I perceived distinctly since I had parted with the indignant back of Captain Giles were the crew of the harbour steam-launch lounging on the spacious landing about the cur-
tained archway of the shipping office.
Embosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so spacious that it con-
tained many thousand inhabitants.