Larry proceeded without delay
to the wise man's residence, after putting a small phial of holy water
in his pocket to protect himself from fairy influence. The house in
which this person lived was admirably in accordance with his mysterious
character. One gable of it was formed by the mound of a fairy Rath,
against the cabin, which stood endwise; within a mile there was no other
building; the country around it was a sheep-walk, green, and beautifully
interspersed with two or three solitary glens, in one of which might be
seen a cave that was said to communicate under ground with the rath. A
ridge of high-Peaked mountains ran above it, whose evening shadow, in
consequence of their form, fell down on each side of the rath, without
obscuring its precincts. It lay south; and, such was the power of
superstition, that during summer, the district in which it stood was
thought to be covered with a light decidedly supernatural. In spring, it
was the first to be in verdure, and in autumn the last. Nay, in winter
itself, the rath and the adjoining valleys never ceased to be green,
these circumstances were not attributed to the nature of the soil, to
its southern situation, nor to the fact of its being pasture land;
but simply to the power of the fairies, who were supposed to keep its
verdure fresh for their own revels.
When Larry entered the house, which had an air of comfort and snugness
beyond the common, a tall thin pike of a man, about sixty years of age,
stood before him.
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