Continuing quote from Irving Litvag's "The Master of Sunnybank", published
1977 by Harper & Row:
"The big boulder -- actually only a few inches of it stuck
above the surface of the ground, like the tip of some ancient igneous iceberg -- served as a
natural centerpiece for the tiny cemetary. And on the edges of the top of the rock
were carved a few of the names of the dogs sleeping alongside. The carving was not the neat, professional
work found on gravestones. The letters slanted away at silly angles, almost as if a
child painstakingly had etched in the letters with hammer and chisel. A workman on The Place
had done it, perhaps, or the Master himself.
"Wolf was one of the names on the boulder and Bob
another. Scattered for a short distance around the rock were small, rectangular
stone markers denoting still other graves.
"Fair Ellen sleeps here. And there is Champion
Sigurdson and over there Champion Explorer. And Champion Thane. And there is the grave of Tippy,
the Persian cat of the Mistress and the respected foe of so many of the collies.
"The Visitor slowly read the names and then read
them again. And the memories passed through his mind again as if a roster of great
heroes was being called out, the names echoing across a parade ground with
the flags snapping in the wind and the band playing proud martial airs. The
names were to him like the names of great people in a dimly remembered
history book; and they were, at the same time, like the names of the dearest
friends of his boyhood, coming back to him now in a strange cloud of distant
sorrow."
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