and made turnips and
other root crops to grow where none grew before. But the country side
has struck against him, and he is now actually in a state of siege.
Personally attended by an armed escort everywhere, he has a garrison
of ten constables on his premises, some established in a hut, and the
rest in that part of Lough Mask House adjacent to the old castle.
Garrisoned at home and escorted abroad, Mr. Boycott and his family are
now reduced to one female domestic. Everybody else has gone away,
protesting sorrow, but alleging that the power brought to bear upon
them was greater than they could resist. Farm labourers, workmen,
herds-men, stablemen, all went long ago, leaving the corn standing,
the horses in the stable, the sheep in the field, the turnips, swedes,
carrots, and potatoes in the ground, where I saw them yesterday. Last
Tuesday the laundress refused to wash for the family any longer; the
baker at Ballinrobe is afraid to supply them with bread, and the
butcher fears to send them meat. The state of siege is perfect.

When the strike first began Mr. Boycott went bravely to work with his
family, setting the young ladies to reaping and binding, and looking
after the beasts and sheep himself. But the struggle is nearly at an
end now. Mr. Boycott has sold some of his stock; but he can neither
sell his crop to anybody else, nor, as they say in the North of
England, "win" it for himself. There remains in the ground at least
five hundred pounds worth of potatoes and other root crops, and the
owner has no possible means of doing anything with them. Nor, I am
assured on trustworthy authority, would any human being buy them at
any price; nor, if any such person were found, would he be able to
find any labourer to touch any manner of work on the spot under the
ban. By an impalpable and invisible power it is decreed that Mr.
Boycott shall be "hunted out," and it is more than doubtful whether he
will, under existing circumstances, be able to stand against it. He is
unquestionably a brave and resolute man, but there is too much reason
to believe that without his garrison and escort his life would not be
worth an hour's purchase.

There are few fairer prospects than that from the steps of Lough Mask
House, a moderately comfortable and unpretending edifice, not quite so
good as a large farmer's homestead in England. But the potatoes will
rot in the ground, and the cattle will go astray, for not a soul in
the Ballinrobe coun