everest fellows
elsewhere evince in accumulating theirs. But you are looking a little
pale, I think; these late hours won't suit you, so I 'll just send you
to bed.'

I felt the whole force of my kind friend's advice, and yielding
obedience at once, I shook him by the hand and wished him good-night.

CHAPTER XXXVI. MURRANAKILTY

If my kind reader is not already tired of the mountain-road and the wild
west, may I ask him--dare I say her?--to accompany me a little farther,
while I present another picture of its life?

You see that bold mountain, jagged and rugged in outline, like the spine
of some gigantic beast, that runs far out into the Atlantic, and ends in
a bold, abrupt headland, against which the waves, from the very coast of
Labrador, are beating without one intervening rock to break their force?
Carry your eye along its base, to where you can mark a little clump of
alder and beech, with here and there a taper poplar interspersed, and
see if you cannot detect the gable of a long, low, thatched house, that
lies almost buried in the foliage. Before the door a little patch of
green stretches down to the shore, where a sandy beach, glowing in all
the richness of a morning sun, glitters with many a shell and brilliant
pebble. That, then, is Murranakilty.

But approach, I beg you, a little nearer. Let me suppose that you have
traced the winding of that little bay, crossing the wooden bridge over
the bright trout stream, as it hastens on to mingle its waters with the
ocean; you have climbed over the rude stile, and stopped for an instant
to look into the holy well, in whose glassy surface the little wooden
crucifix above is dimly shadowed, and at length you stand upon the lawn
before the cottage. What a glorious scene is now before you! On the
opposite side of the bay, the mountain, whose summit is lost among the
clouds, seems as it were cleft by some earthquake force; and through its
narrow gorge you can trace the blue water of the sea passing in, while
each side of the valley is clothed with wood. The oak of a hundred
years, here sheltered from the rude wind of the Atlantic, spreads its
luxuriant arms, while the frothy waves are breaking at its feet. High,
however, above their tops you may mark the irregular outline of a large
building, with battlements and towers and massive walls, and one tall
and loopholed turret, that rises high into the air, and around whose
summit the noisy rooks are circling in their