Leaving Castleisland about five in the afternoon, he was accompanied for about a mile by the head constable, who then turned back.  Mr. Herbert had not proceeded a quarter of a mile further when he was felled by the assassins.  The spot chosen was singularly open, no shelter being visible for some distance.  Several shots were heard by a labourer at work in a quarry, and when he came up he found Mr. Herbert lying on his face in the road, quite dead, the earth about him being covered with pools of blood.  The body was almost riddled with shot and bullets.

That night a further illustration of the vindictive ferocity of the outrage was given.  The lawn in front of Killeentierna was patrolled regularly by some of the large body of police which at once occupied the house.  On this lawn eleven lambs were grazing.  At half-past two these were seen by the police to be all right.  At daybreak the eleven were found stabbed with pitchforks—­nine of them killed outright, and two wounded to death.  This act, as wretched as it was daring, added a new horror to the crime.

Mr. Herbert’s murder was received with such exuberant delight in Kerry that my steward said to me:—­

’You would think, sir, that rent was abolished and the duty taken off whisky.’

Constabulary had for a long while to be told off to prevent his grave being desecrated.

That is a pretty tough outrage for optimistic philanthropists to consider when they are addicted to announcing how far our generations have progressed from barbarism.

The price of blood in Kerry was not high.  For example, the men that murdered FitzMaurice were paid L5 for the job, and they had never seen him before.  His family had to be under police protection for five years, and I managed to get L1000 subscribed for them in England, Mr. Froude taking an enthusiastic and generous interest in a very sad case.  The victim left two daughters, who both married policemen.

One young and cheery Kerry landlord was very proud, about 1886, at the price of forty shillings being offered for his life by the Land League, whereas nearly all the others were only valued at half a sovereign apiece.

As a matter of fact, almost any one could have been shot at Castleisland if a sovereign were offered, for they cared no more for human life than for that of a rat.  Parnell himself would have been shot by any one of a couple of dozen fellows willing to earn a dishonest living if a five-pound note had been locally put upon his head.  A patriotic philanthropist, destitute of the bowels of compassion and of every dictate of humanity, might have saved a great deal of undeserved suffering if he had made this donation towards his ’removal’—­a pretty euphemism of Land League coinage.

Most of that generation are dead, in gaol, or have emigrated.  It would take the deuce of a big sum to tempt any Castleislander to-day to commit murder, except under provocation, and the same improvement is observable all over Ireland.  I believe a hundred pounds might be put on the head of the least popular agent or landlord, and he might walk unscathed without police protection.