Where the Atlantic meets the land

by H. Caldwell Lipsett

The two men turned and strode down the mountain side, the keeper bringing up the rear with the two pointers. The heather rustled stiffly against their iron-shod boots as they went, showing behind them a trail of bruised stalks and nail marks on the naked earth. Every now and then, at the sound of their steps a hare rose out of range and dodged swiftly round the corner of a knoll, shrugging her shoulders at the hail-storm of spent shot that rattled round her. Or a snipe rose with a startling rush and a shrill 'scape, scape' at their feet after being nearly walked over, and zigzagged out of sight. At the foot of the slope came a belt of rushes with bog-holes gaping for the feet of the unwary. Beyond that was the first sign of approaching civilization, a potato field, across the ridges of which they strode to reach a cart-track beyond. A mile along this lay the shebeen they were making for.

'I suppose you'll be very much in evidence to-night with your men,' remarked Trevor idly, after a time, to break the silence.

'Now, my dear fellow, you might know better than that, after living amongst these people all your life. There's nothing that provokes an Irishman to make a row so much as to let him know you're ready for him. Sheer cussedness is a much neglected factor in human nature, and especially Irish nature. No, of course I have an extra contingent of men in town for the occasion in case of emergency, but my chief endeavor is always to confine them to barracks and to keep them in the background as much as possible. Their presence only causes friction. More than one of my friends has suffered before now through an undue display of activity.'

'Do you mean that you don't intend to interfere at all, then?'

'Not if I can possibly help it. If I have to make even one arrest it's all over, it will be a free fight. The wisdom of those in authority is such, that they have placed the new barracks at the far end of the town from the poorest, and therefore the rowdiest, quarter. The consequence is that, to run a man in, as a general rule, my men have to drag him about half a mile through the public streets, and no Irish mob that was ever raked off its native dung-heap could stand such a temptation as that.'

By this time they had reached the shebeen, a small two-roomed cottage with moss and long grasses growing on its weather-beaten thatched roof. The lower half of the door was shut, but over it they could see the room inside with its hard mud floor; it was furnished with a dresser hung with a few tin porringers and delf plates and bowls, a bedstead and a table; on the hearth was burning a turf fire; in the open chimney-place there swung an iron crook, from which a pot had just been lifted and was now set in the middle of the floor; round it the family, consisting of an old man, a girl and a boy, were gathered upon three-legged stools for their evening meal; each was armed with an iron spoon and a bowl of buttermilk; beside them on some embers a tin teapot was stewing. On the left of the entrance was a half-open door leading into the second room, inside which the sight of some large earthenware crocks of milk and the corner of a bedstead showed that it was used conjointly as a dairy and a sleeping chamber. Outside the door was the car, with the groom standing at the horse's head.

As the afternoon sun cast their long shadows across the floor of the cottage the old man looked up and saw the two men standing on the doorstep; he rose and opened the half door, and immediately an Irish terrier barking furiously rushed out and attacked the two pointers, that were behind with the keeper. In a moment the three dogs were rolling together in the road amid a perfect hurricane of yelps.

'Call off your damned mongrel,' shouted Trevor, the veins in his neck purple with rage on behalf of his favorite sporting dogs; but in that rolling mass of liver and white and yellow it was impossible to distinguish one whole animal from another. Pull off your dog, Flannigan, or I'll shoot him,' shouted Trevor again, and with his right thumb he pulled up the hammer of his gun, his finger on the trigger. The old man stooped to separate the dogs; as he did so, Trevor's thumb slipped, the hammer fell, there was a loud report, and the whole charge of shot struck the peasant behind the shoulder at a distance of three yards at most. He fell with a scream in the middle of the road. The horse stood up on his hind legs pawing at the groom. The dogs rolled into the ditch and continued to worry each other there unnoticed. The rest stood still, stupefied.

'That's what comes of an unsteady hand,' muttered Fitzgerald grimly to himself.

The same instant the girl rushed out of the cottage and threw herself on her father's body. 'Ye've kilt him,' she moaned, 'ye've kilt him.'