Where the Atlantic meets the land

by H. Caldwell Lipsett

He had brought his air-gun with him, and to while away the time, he got it out and began shooting at the fish as they rose. He soon found that, by allowing for the curve of the pellets, he could hit a spot the size of half-a-crown at a dozen yards with some certainty, and at this sport he amused himself for the rest of the afternoon, until he had acquired a fair command of the weapon. Gradually as he continued his pastime, the vicious snick of the bullets in the water infected his blood, and gave rise to curious thoughts within him. He grasped his weapon more tightly, the perspiration stood out upon his forehead, and a fierce satisfaction surged through him each time he hit his aim. Suddenly he came to himself with a start and recognized the emotion that had been driving him. It was a feeling of murderous revolt against that society which had given him expensive tastes without the means of gratifying them. All those yearnings of his for fine books and pictures, the pleasures of the palate, and the love of women, for everything which can be bought by money, or, rather cannot be procured without its possession, must run to waste and remain forever unsatisfied. It was against the possessors of all those good things which he had not and could never hope to have, that in his mind he had been directing those bullets with such fatal accuracy.

The knowledge came home to him with a sudden shock, and horror-stricken at himself he hastily put up his rod and started on his homeward journey. The sultriness of the day, as is often the case in the hour before sunset, had become even intensified. There was not a breath of air, as he jogged quietly along in the evening light. All nature seemed to perspire, and a dull yellow haze covered the surrounding country. The road stretched straight and dusty before him between its walls of sod; and upon either hand spread a flat and uninteresting expanse of bog and moorland. The approach to the town was signalled by the change from the clay to a limestone soil; and instead of the occasional ditches of sod or huge drains, which divided the country and restricted the wanderings of a few isolated cows and donkeys, frequent stone walls began to appear, built by piling odd stones together without cement of any kind, and separating fields of hay, wheat, and potatoes.

Rather more than half the distance had been traversed, when an object detached itself from the haze in the middle distance and rapidly approached. As it drew near he saw that it was a car, with a man sitting upon one side, and the other side turned up; and as it came still closer he recognized in the driver a cousin of his own, the land-steward of the Duke of Ulster. The other was going to pass with a wave of his whip. But a sudden revulsion of feeling had come over Philip. Nature had taken upon herself the oppression of his own spirits, and had shamed him out of his febrile emotions by the spectacle of her larger melancholy. So now that he had met a fellow-creature he was glad to escape the surrounding monotony and was seized with a sudden craving for conversation.

'Hullo, Dick, whither away so fast?' he shouted. 'Here, have I not seen you for a whole year, and you cut me as dead as if you owed me money.'

Both pulled up their horses, and Dick replied: 'Sorry, old man. Didn't mean to offend you, but I've got a lot of money here, so I'm in a hurry to get home, and have it off my hands. Been collecting the quarter's rents, and have got about five thousand pounds in cash to take care of.'

'Pooh, you're codding. Why didn't you put it in the Bank?'

'Couldn't. Shuts early on Saturdays. And no safe in my office to keep it in.'

'Well, but after all there wouldn't be so much harm done, even if you did get it collared. I suppose you've taken the numbers of the notes.'

'Why, my dear fellow,' replied the other, 'all the tenants are small farmers, and pay either in coin or in one pound notes, that would be just as difficult to trace.'

So saying he put his horse into a walk to pass him. At that moment feeling for his whip, Philip's hand fell upon that demon-possessed air-gun, which he had left loaded on the cushion beside him. An electric thrill passed through all his nerves. Almost without volition the weapon flew to his shoulder. He saw Dick's temple turned sideways towards him for a moment. There was a whip-like crack, a thud, and his body swayed heavily and fell backwards on the stone ditch beside the road. Both horses stood still. All nature held her breath. A vast silence brooded over the landscape. There wasn't a figure to be seen within the horizon.