behind that the gombeen man had served writs on them, obtained judgment
against their holdings, and could evict them at pleasure.

When Paddy married and settled down in Dungloe he found the reason for the
unpayableness of the debt. One day he and his father shopped at the gombeen
store together. They bought the same amount of meal. The father paid
cash--seventeen shillings. Forty-four days later, Paddy brought his money.
But the gombeen man presented him with a bill for twenty-one shillings and
three pence. It did no good to say how much the father had paid for the
same amount of meal. The gombeen man insisted that Paddy's father had given
eighteen shillings, and Paddy was being charged just three shillings and
three pence interest. Or only 144 per cent per annum!

"Why do we buy from him? Why don't we get together and do our own buying?"
asked the insurgent Paddy. After much reflection he had decided on the
tactics of his campaign against poverty and the recruiting for his army
commenced that night as the neighbors visited about his turf fire. There
was doubt on the faces of those tied to the gombeen man. But Paddy
continued: "Let's try it out in a small way, say with fertilizer. That
stuff he's selling us isn't as good as kelp, and he won't tell us what it's
made of."

The recruits fell in. They scraped up enough money to buy a twenty-ton load
of rich manure from a neighboring co-operative society. The little deal
saved them $200 and brought them heavy crops. They organized. They needed a
store. Up in a rocky boreen on his little farm, Paddy had an empty shed.
Again the neighbors explored the toes of their money stockings, and found
enough to pay for filling the shed with flour, tea, sugar and meal. Then,
if they were "free" men, they came boldly to shop on the nights the store
was open--moonlight or no moonlight. But if they were "tied" men, they
crept fearsomely tip the rocks on dark nights only. The recruits recruited.
Financial and social returns began to come in. At the end of the first year
there was a clear profit of over $500. In three years the society was
recognized as one of the most efficient in Ireland and presented by the
Pembroke fund with a fine stucco hall. Jigs. Dances. Lectures.

But the gombeen man wasn't "taking it lying down." He called on his
political and religious friends to aid. First on the magistrate. When Paddy
became the political rival of the gombeen man for the county council, there