Leamy was in spite of himself a man of letters. He was so
genuinely an artist that he could not do the thing ill. Any one of
these stories will prove his capacity: the first, for instance, about
that princess on the "bare, brown, lonely moor" who was "as sweet and
as fresh as an opening rosebud, and her voice was as musical as the
whisper of a stream in the woods in the hot days of summer." There is
not a flaw in it. It is so filled with simple beauty and tenderness,
and there is so much of the genuine word-magic in its language, that
one is carried away as by the spell of natural oratory. It has, too,
that intimate sympathy with nature which is another racial note in
these stories. The enchanted moor, with its silence, where no sound is
heard--the wind which shouted beyond the mountains, "when it sped
across the moor it lost its voice, and passed as silently as the
dead"--is affected by the fortune of the tale equally with its human
and its elfin personages. When the knight arrives at last, "wherever
his horse's hoofs struck the ground, grass and flowers sprang up, and
great trees with leafy branches rose on every side.... As they rode on
beneath the leafy trees from every tree the birds sang out, for the
spell of silence over the lonely moor was broken for ever." This
unpretentious story, a child's story, is as engaging as a gem. And so,
I think, are most of the others. One more example to illustrate the
quality of Leamy's style--say, the description of the contest of the
bards before the High King at the Feis of Tara in the story called
"The Huntsman's Son." The King gives the signal, the chief bard of
Erin ascends the mound in front of the royal enclosure, and is greeted
with a roar of cheers; but at the first note of his harp there is
silence like that of night.

"As he moved his fingers softly over the strings every heart
was hushed, filled with a sense of balmy rest. The lark,
soaring and singing above his head, paused mute and motionless
in the still air, and no sound was heard over the spacious
plain save the dreamy music. Then the bard struck another key,
and a gentle sorrow possessed the hearts of his hearers, and
unbidden tears gathered to their eyes. Then, with bolder hand,
he swept his fingers across his lyre, and all hearts were
moved to joy and pleasant laughter, and eyes that had been
dimmed by tears sparkled as brightly as running waters dancing
in the sun.