As he looked back, a huge, ungainly form thrust itself before the slender figure. A great dark head stood out against the light shirtwaist the girl wore, and he perceived that Comrag had strolled from his stall for a friendly good-night.
"The only friend she has left now," Sir Bryan reflected in sorrowful compunction.
He strode down the mountain at a good pace. Now and then a startled rabbit crossed his path, and once his imagination turned a scrub-oak into the semblance of a bear. But he gave no heed to these apparitions. His sportsman's instinct had suffered a check.
By the time Sir Bryan had reached the outskirts 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 The enchantment of the mountain-side had already withdrawn itself into impregnable shadow.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."
Every year, however, the inscription becomes somewhat less legible and it is to be feared that all record of the poor bear will soon be lost.