“Climb Mont Blanc, if you will,” said the Honourable, “but leave me these white bastions of the Selkirks.”
Even so. They have not seen the snowy hills of God who have yet to look upon the Rocky Mountains, absolute, stupendous, sublimely grave.
Jo Gordineer and Pretty Pierre strode on together. They being well away from the other two, the Honourable turned and said to Shon: “What was the name of the man who wrote that song of yours, again, Shon?”
“Lawless.”
“Yes, but his first name?”
“Duke—Duke Lawless.”
There was a pause, in which the other seemed to be intently studying the glacier above them. Then he said: “What was he like?—in appearance, I mean.”
“A trifle more than your six feet, about your colour of hair and eyes, and with a trick of smilin’ that would melt the heart of an exciseman, and O’Connell’s own at a joke, barrin’ a time or two that he got hold of a pile of papers from the ould country. By the grave of St. Shon! thin he was as dry of fun as a piece of blotting paper. And he said at last, before he was aisy and free again, ‘Shon,’ says he, ‘it’s better to burn your ships behind ye, isn’t it?’
“And I, havin’ thought of a glen in ould Ireland that I’ll never see again, nor any that’s in it, said: ‘Not, only burn them to the water’s edge, Duke Lawless, but swear to your own soul that they never lived but in the dreams of the night.’
“‘You’re right there, Shon,’ says he, and after that no luck was bad enough to cloud the gay heart of him, and bad enough it was sometimes.”