“Two guillemots or two eiderducks—it is all the same. You were within the prohibited limit.”
“I admit it,” I said. “It had not occurred to me before.”
“But it ought to have occurred to you.”
“I also fired off both barrels once in May, at very nearly the same spot. It was on a picnic one day. And it was done at your own request.”
“That is another matter,” answered Herr Mack shortly.
“Well, then, devil take it, you know what you have to do, I suppose?”
“Perfectly well,” he answered.
Eva held herself in readiness; when I went out, she followed me; she had put on a kerchief, and walked away from the house; I saw her going down towards the quay. Herr Mack walked back home.
I thought it over. What a mind, to hit on that all at once, and save himself! And those piercing eyes of his. A shot, two shots, a brace of guillemots—a fine, a payment. And then everything, everything, would be settled with Herr Mack and his house. After all, it was going off so beautifully quickly and neatly...
The rain was coming down already, in great soft drops. The magpies flew low along the ground, and when I came home and turned Æsop loose he began eating the grass. The wind was beginning to rustle.