On the two following nights again nothing was taken; but on the third morning news was brought that an older lamb had been killed in Jack Skehan's flock, and that the carcase had not been removed, so Paddy Magragh went up to the field.
'Bedam! I'll have the poison thick in every field on the farm, and put up the wire besides,' stormed Jack Skehan. 'Is al' me sheep to be worried on me that the gintry may hunt their dirthy foxes over me land? I'll have ivery mother's son o' thim prosecuted.'
'Now I'll go bail,' said Paddy Magragh, who had picked up the carcase, 'that 'twas a dog had this killed.'
'An' what dog in this counthry would touch a sheep, an' they wid 'em all day?' demanded Garry, Jack Skehan's young brother.
'Where have ye that felly o' yours shut at nights?' asked Paddy Magragh, looking at the little narrow-headed cur who slunk at Skehan's heel.
'Shure he slapes in the cowhouse, and I lets him out in the mornin'. But he'd never harm a sheep—I rared him meself.'
Paddy Magragh spat discreetly. 'I'd have me cowhouse door mended, an' the window blocked,' said he.
'Are ye sayin' that it was a dog all the while?' demanded Skehan irately.
'I do not. Maybe 'twas a fox took one or two—the first was a little small one, an' he sick-like. But this is a dog, shure enough.' And he looked again at Jack Skehan's sheep-dog, who was licking his paws thoughtfully.
'Well, I'll have the poison down again, an' that widout the paper. Shure there's enough o' talkin'. If there's another lamb worried on me, begob, but I'll poison every fox in Knockdane,' grumbled Jack Skehan.