Where the Atlantic meets the land

by H. Caldwell Lipsett

THE GILLIE

The snow had been lying for several days, when I woke one morning and found my windows covered with the delicate tracery of hoar-frost. 'What a day for snipe-shooting!' I said, and jumping out of bed, sent a message to Hughie M'Nulty to come up at once, that I wanted him for a day's sport.

Hughie was a professional angler, who gained a good living during the summer months by acting as guide and assistant to rich English salmon-fishers, and hibernated for the rest of the year by the help of any odd jobs he could pick up. He was my constant companion on my vagrant shooting excursions, and a livelier, more talkative, or more interesting companion could not be wished for. He arrived, buttoning up his coat, before I had finished my breakfast; and after he had cut some sandwiches and filled my flask with whisky, we set out together.

'Now, Hughie,' said I, before getting clear of the town, for I knew of old his little weakness for cheating the revenue, 'have you got a game license yet this year?'

'Troth, Misther Harry, ain't I own keeper to Misther Donovan ov the Castle, an' d'ye think the likes ov him wud begrudge me a dhirty license?'

'I doubt you're too emphatic, Hughie, to be quite truthful. If you like to confess while there's time, I'll get you one. But, remember, if you get caught by the gauger without one, I'll not be responsible, and you'll have to clear yourself as best you may without my assistance.'

'God sees that, if it's not the truth that I'm tellin',' said Hughie, and we turned off the road into the fields.

Presently my companion remembered he owed something to his dignity, and began: 'I tell ye, surr, ye were lucky to git me the mornin' at ahl, at ahl; ivery wan was fur havin' me ahl to wanst. There was Misther Donovan sint down for me, jist afther I got yer message, wantin' me to go and shoot cock with him on the island in the lough; and there was Misther Fitzgerald, an' Dennison, an' Kilpathrick, an' Dawson, an' Gorman—they was ahl jist ravenin' for me; but I wudn't disappint yer ahner for one av thim, an' I jist ups an' towld thim so.'

'You've made a bad shot this time, Hughie; you should name some one that I don't know. I was playing cards last night with all those gentlemen, and I know that not one of them can go out shooting to-day. Mr. Donovan has gone up to Dublin this morning; Mr. Dennison is going to the fair at Enniskillen; Mr. Fitzgerald is on duty; Mr. Kilpatrick has a case coming on at the Court-house; and the other two can't leave the Bank on a market day. You should really be a little more careful of your ground, Hughie.'

'Ah, kape wide, can't ye, an' houl' yer whist. Ye'll be havin' the burds as wild as hawks, an' we won't git inside of an ass's roar ov thim the day. Ye might as well have brought thim dogs ye wanted, scuttherin' through the snow, if this is the road yer goin' to kape jabberin'. There, what did I tell ye? Auch! Begob, I thought he was clane away,' and Hughie ran forward to pick up our first snipe.

'Now, I'll take ye to a place that's jist swarmin' wi' them this weather. D'ye know the ould bog of Tubbernavaicha—the well in the bog, that manes—foreninst the face of the hill beyant? No?—well, that's the place ye'll fin' them.'

When we came to the old bog we recognized the fact by finding the surface sinking beneath our feet, and the icy water oozing into our boots; otherwise, there was nothing to mark it from the surrounding country beneath its winding sheet of snow. As we got further and further out the ground became more and more tremulous, and we sank to our knees at every step, but luckily for our comfort the frozen mud and snow had caked into a hard mass a foot below the surface; the whole bog shivered and sank at each fresh step as we crashed through the thin upper crust of ice, but we did not go through the solid mass below, and it rose buoyantly again beneath us like a life-buoy in the sea. But still we did not come across any birds.

'This bates ahl, this bates ahl,' Hughie kept muttering to himself. 'Not a burrd in the whole bog; but there's just the wan wee spring in the middle that we're comin' to. Luk out, surr. Ah, well shot! Ye'll soon larn to shute av ye kape on. The way he wint straight away behin' us I didn't think ye cud turn to git a shot at ahl, an' yous shtuck up to yer knees in the dirt. But we're in luck the whole time not to be in deeper; for I've seen the time I've thramped this bog an' it's cum up to me arrum-pits in every part ov it, an' I've had to sweem the pools with me gun over me head. Troth, we'd be friz enthirely av we had to do the likes ov yon the day.'

'Well, Hughie, I don't think much of your hot corner. Can't you do better than this?'

'Well, ye see, it's this way, yer ahner, in the harrd weather the burrds takes to the springs av runnin' wather. I thought the bog wud be saft enough for thim still, but I was mistook. But we've got thim now, anyways; for I was on the jayological survey what cum down here from Dublin 'tis three year cum Michaelmas: I helped to hould the tapes, an' av I didn't larn nothin' else, I larnt the springs to fin' the snipeses through ahl the counthry roun'.'

As he spoke a snipe got up in front of him, and flew slowly and hungrily away along the surface of the snow. Hughie blazed both barrels at it with no effect. 'Ah, I knocked a hatful of feathers out av that boy, anyway,' said he, looking after it indignantly; and as it was just topping the wall of the next field, I brought it down with a fluky cross-shot. He walked forward and picked it up in disgusted silence, and didn't speak another word for a good half hour.

At the end of that time we walked into a wisp of eight, out of which we got a brace each, and Hughie's good humor was restored. 'Did ye see the way them two of mine wus shot?' he said; 'the wan that wint towerin' straight up in circles, an' thin shut his wings an' fell with a whop that wud have shuck the breath out av his body av he'd had any lef, was shot through the heart; the other wan flew a wee bit wid his head thrown over his back an' his wings fluttherin'. I knew he wudn't go far; he just soothered down slantways wid his wings straight out—he was shot in the head. Ah! isn't it just like thim, the divils, to rise like that ahl av a plump; why cudn't they cum wan be wan, singly an' giv' a dacent man a chanst at them? Mother av Moses! but I laughed, yer ahner, when ye wiped me eye a while back foreninst the stone wall.'

The laughter had not been perceptible, but this was making the amende honorable, and to show there was no ill feeling I handed him the flask to take a drink. 'An' what about lunch, surr?' he said, as he handed it back.

'We'll go up to the top of that hill and have lunch now.'

'What for wud we climb the brae? There's nothin' up there batin' a rabbud mebbe.'

'I want to see the view.'

'Auch, the view,' said Hughie, in high disdain; he did not see why any one should go out of his way to climb a hill when he could stop comfortably at the bottom.

Arrived at the top, the wide prospect below us repaid me at least for the journey. The country spread white and glittering before us until it met the gray line of the sea upon the horizon, the faint undulations of the stone walls looking like infants' graves, and the few hedges and trees on the bare landscape draped with waterfalls of snow.

Hughie, on more practical thoughts intent, searched out a well of spring-water and unpacked the sandwiches out of the game-bag. Just as we began to eat, a bird flashed round the corner of the wall and flew straight away from us down the hill. 'Shute, man, shute,' cried Hughie, dancing with excitement; I crammed my sandwich into my mouth, and seizing my gun with one hand, let it off vaguely from the hip.

'What's the good in telling me to shoot and scare the bird when it was out of range already, you idiot?' I said.

'Oh, niver min' the range. What's a pennorth ov powdher? Ye shud ahlways shute at a wudcock if it's in the same parish wid ye. Ye'll niver git another chanst,' and he pointed to where the bird was winging its way with the steady flight of an owl across the open to the opposite hill.

'Tell me, Hughie,' said I, when we had settled down to our lunch again, 'why don't you learn a trade to work at in the winter, and then all you earn in the summer would be clear profit? You must earn a good deal then if you only had constant employment to keep you going the rest of the year.'

'Ay, I do that. I arn me guinea a day an' live on the fat ov the lan', but the best ov the saison is on'y for two months, an' the rest is slack. Whin I wus a bhoy me father sint me to Ameriky to larn a thrade, an' he giv me the time ov day in me pockit; but I kim back agin widout it, an' niver a tatter but the clothes I stud up in, an' thim in rags, an' since thin I niver thried to larn a thrade agin. Ye see, it's this way, surr, some rivers is early, an' some is late, an' what wid wan an' another there's fishin' for them as likes it from the beginnin' ov March to well-nigh the ind of October, an' that on'y laves foor months ov the year empty, tho' I'm not arnin' reglar ahl the time. Sometimes I've gone over to Glasgy an' Liverpool in the winter an' dhrew me thirty shillin' a week workin' on them stamers; but as soon as the time cum roun' I started to hanker afther the oul' life; there's no life like it. I'd give the swatest song that iver wumman sung for the song ov the tight line to the music ov the reel, so back I kim. I kin fish an' I kin shute, an' what more do I want?'

'That last is a matter of opinion,' I said, 'but the sarcasm was too English, and passed harmlessly over his head.

'Why don't you marry and settle down?' I continued, 'and you'd soon get regular work.'

'Marry, is it? Me? I'd luke a nice gomeral, wouldn't I, wid a parcel ov childher trailin' at me tail. Me, I've got as much call wid a wife as a pig wid a side-pocket. The whisky's done, an' none to be had nearer nor Biddy M'Intyre's shebeen, two mile away, an' it on'y putcheen; but putcheen's none so bad whin there's nothin' else handy, an' the hollys roun' her house is just crawlin' wi' snipeses.' And Hughie turned the flask upside down regretfully.

I took the hint, and said, 'Very well, then, we'll make for Biddy's. But how is it that there's a shebeen left in this part of the country? I thought that the priests had stamped out the illicit liquor trade hereabouts.'

'Ay, so they have. But, ye see, Biddy's a Protestant, an' can snap her fingers at them.'

'Then there's some advantage in being a Protestant, after all.'

'Ah, what's a sup of putcheen to a quiet min', av yer a Protestant ye have to bear the load av yer own sins instid av the prastes bearin' it for you, an' givin' ye a wee bit penance ivery now an' thin. Av I was yous I couldn't lay quiet in me bed for thinkin' ov me sins.

'Talkin' ov Ameriky,' continued Hughie, for once started talking he never stopped, 'there's Annie M'Gay kim back from it Friday's a week that fine that ye wudn't know her. I wus seein' her yistherday, and axed her if her tay wus to her taste, an' she ups an' says, says she, "The shuperfluity ov the shugar has spoilt the flavoracity ov the tay." Boys, but she's the gurl wot can use the gran' long wurruds,' and Hughie rolled the syllables over again lovingly in his mouth.

'That minds me,' he continued, 'ov a day we had yestherday's a month. It was a fine day, the Duke of Donegal was havin' a shutin' party, an' me an' twinty others was the baters. A broilin' day it was, an' we got a drouth on us ye cud cut wid a knife. The Duke he's a fine hospitable man, an' he giv us a barrel of porther for lunch, an' as much as we cud ate wi' lashin's an' lavin's to spare. An' we finished the porther betwixt us, an' was fair sighin' for more. Whin we kim to Farmer Gavigan's, an' he axed us in an' giv us whisky all roun', beautiful whisky it was, it wint down that soft, like mother's milk. But the head-keeper he hears of it, an' he comes up rampin' an' ravin', an' he says, says he,—

'"Farmer Gavigan," he says, "I'm surprised at yous, givin' these men whisky on the top ov porther, an' thim just foamin' for a fight."

'"An' why wudn't they fight?" says Farmer Gavigan; "ducks will go barefut."

'"Troth, they'll khill other."

'"Ah, lit them khill away," says he; he's a fine raisonable man is Farmer Gavigan.' And Hughie licked his lips at the luscious recollection.

'D'ye min' the day,' he went on, 'that ye caught the salmon on Lough Legaltian?'

'No, and you needn't start any of your lies about it, for I never caught a salmon in my life.'

'Ah, thin it was yer brither; it's all wan. Boys, ye shud ha' bin' wid us the day him an' me caught the big throut. There was a big sthorrum on the lough that day, an' we wus blown clane aff ov the wather, an' dhruv five mile down the lough to the far end ov it. About half-way down yer brother he shtuck in the throut while throllin' the flies afther the boat, an' if it hadn't bin for him we'd ha' bin ahl drownded for shure. The waves wus that big, an' kep follerin' that fast, that they'd hav overtuk us an' swep clane over the boat, for we didn't know how to row fast enough, but that throut started on ahead, an' sind I may die if it's not truth I'm tellin', but he towed us afther him as if he'd bin a whale.'

'It must have been a good strong trout line that you had that day!'

'Ay, the best; ov our own sellin'. It was that light an' thin ye cud see through it ahl but, but ye cud houl a man up be it. Well, when we got into the shelther of the bay at the far ind I started to gaff that throut, but he wus so big I cudn't lift him into the boat. Yer brother had to git a catch ov him be the gills an' be the tail an' help me to take him in. An' whin we came to weigh him he was a hundred an' ten pound, every ounce of it, an' he wus foul-hooked be the tail.'

'Why not make it the even hundredweight at once?'

'Now ye think it's jokin' I am, but I'm not, an' I can prove it to yous, that same. For I had the head stuffed, an' it's in me chimbly at home this minute.'

'All right, I'll come in and see it to-night on our way home. I should like to see that head.'

'Ah, now ye spake ov it, I mind me I sint it on'y yistherday's a week to the Fisheries Exhibition in Lunnon.'

'I thought so. It's a wonder I never heard of that trout from my brother.'

'Ah, him is it? He's got as much mouth on him as a cod.'

'Damn,' said I, 'there's the third snipe I've missed since lunch, and I didn't miss one at all before that. My eyes are all watering.'

'I'll tell ye what it is, Misther Harry; it's them specs ye hav on. They catch the glare ov the snow. When yer eyes was fresh ye saw everythin' distinct agin the snow; but now they're tired ye'll see nothin'. So ye may jist giv up.'

'I suppose that's it. I know that last night I did a thing I never heard of being done before. I shot a snipe by moonlight.'

'Now ye're sayin'.'

'It's a fact, you unbelieving Jew; you're so accustomed to hear lies roll out of your own mouth that you don't know the truth when you hear it. I was coming back in the evening about eight o'clock, and there was bright moonlight; as I was passing through that rushy bit at the head of the town a snipe got up in front of me; I got it clear against a snow bank, and bowled it over as clean as if it had been daylight.'

'It's as well we're at Biddy's now; I'd as lave hav a dhrink afther that. Bring out the putcheen, Biddy.'

The old woman brought out a large earthenware jar from underneath her bed, and taking down a couple of delf mugs off the dresser, handed them to us.

'Will you have a half-un or a whole-un?' I asked.

'A whole-un, to be shure, an' another on the top of that. Here's luck, more power to yer elbow. There's no call to be puttin' wather in it; it shpoils the flavor an' lits out the hate.'

The flavor was a strong taste of turf smoke, and the spirit was so fiery that it nearly rasped the skin off my mouth and throat on its way down.

'An' whin yous hav done that, I'll larn ye a wrinkle. Just put a glass of the crathur in aich ov yer boots, an' ye won't know yersilf; it'll kape yer feet that warrum an' yer boots that aisy. It's ivery bit as good as dhrinkin' it an' betther, an' it'll save yer inside in the mornin'.'

I did so to try the experiment.

At that moment the old woman caught sight of an approaching car, and exclaimed, 'Auch, wirra' it's ruined I am, I'm desthroyed enthirely. Here's the gauger comin' up to the dure wid a polisman beside him, an' me niver to notice him attendin' on yous jintlemen,' and she made a grab at the jar to hide it.

'Never mind that; it's too late now,' I said, 'and I'll see you through. Come in, Gillespie, and have a drink with me.'

'I don't mind if I do for once,' replied the gauger; 'a man wants something inside him sitting on a car in a day like this. It is the coldest day I ever was out in. But you must have that stuff outside the house the next time I come this way, Mrs. M'Intyre.'

Meanwhile the policeman and Hughie had foregathered in a corner, and were having a drink together; but the effect of the whisky made itself rapidly apparent, coming upon the change from the biting air outside to the stuffy atmosphere of the hut. Presently their voices became raised, and we heard the policeman saying,—

'Stan' up agin' me, is it? ye little gingerbread whipper-snapper ye. I'll tell ye what I'll do; I'll put down me five pound agin' yours, an' I'll box you for twenty rounds, an' sweem yous a mile, an' run ye five, the best man to lift the hard stuff.'

'Box? is it yous?' said Hughie scornfully. 'D'ye see that little roun' button on the top ov yer saucepan? I'll putt ye on that an' twirl ye roun' for half an hour, see that now,' and he put his leg behind the crook of the other's knee, and giving him a push on the chest, sent him toppling his full length on the floor.

Hughie looked rather frightened at the success of his wrestling trick, as the policeman rose quivering with passion; but remembering he was in the presence of his superior, the latter touched his cap and contented himself with remarking, 'Wait till the next time I catch ye, me bould buck, dhrunk in the streets, or by your lone in the counthry, an' I'll giv ye a bastin' ye won't forgit, I promise ye.'

I thought by this time it was time to go, and saying good-day, went out. As I went out I heard the policeman say to Hughie, 'By the way, me boys, suppose ye let us see your license now.'

'License is it?' said Hughie; 'what wud I want wid a license? I haven't fired a shot the day. Shure, this is the masther's second gun I'm carryin',' and he came scuttling after me.

'Oh, but them polis is botheration,' he said, when he reached me; 'there's too many ov them in the counthry be half; ye cud feed the pigs aff ov them ahl winter an' not fin' the differ.'

From that point home was a straight walk in along a hard level road, and we swung briskly along in the frosty air.

'Not bad walking,' said I, as we entered the outskirts of the town, 'four miles in three-quarters of an hour.'

'Walkin', says you,' replied Hughie, with impartial justice, 'it's not us at ahl as did it; it's the putcheen. It's a powerful strong walker is putcheen. Thank ye kindly, Masther Harry,' and Hughie touched his cap, put his hand in his pocket, and walked away.