sturbance, and is just now the scene of serious trouble, or what
would appear serious trouble in any less turbulent part of the
country. It is necessary to be exact in describing what occurs here,
as a phrase may easily be construed to imply much more than is
intended. When it is said that the country between Westport and
Ballycroy is disturbed, and that law and order are set at defiance, it
must not be imagined that the roads are unsafe for travellers, or that
any ordinary person is liable to be shot at, beaten, robbed, or
insulted. I have no hesitation in stating that a stranger may go
anywhere in the county, at any hour of the day or night, alone and
unarmed, and that even in country inns he need take no precautions
against robbery. Mayo people do not steal, and if they shot a
stranger, it would only be by mistake for a Scotch farmer or an
English agent. And I am sure that the accident would be sincerely
deplored by the warm-hearted natives. I have thought it well to master
all the details of the Tiernaur difficulty, because it is a perfect
type of the agrarian troubles which agitate the West. In the first
place the reader will clearly understand that English and Scotch
landlords, agents, and farmers, are as a rule abhorred by the Irish
population. It is perhaps hardly my province to decide who is to
blame. Difference of manner may go for a great deal, but beyond and
below the resentment caused by a prompt, decisive, and perhaps
imperious tone, lies a deeply-rooted sense of wrong--logically or
illogically arrived at. The evictions of the last third of a century
and the depopulation of large tracts of country have filled the hearts
of the people with revenge, and, rightly or wrongly, they not only
blame the landlord but the occupier of the land. If, they argue, there
had been no Englishmen and Scotchmen to take large farms, the small
holders would not have been swept away, and "driven like a wild goose
on the mountain" to make room for them. Without for the present
discussing the reasonableness of this plea, I merely record the simple
fact that an English or Scotch farmer is unpopular from the beginning.
Here and there such a one as Mr. Simpson may manage to live the
prejudice down; but that he will have to encounter it on his arrival
is absolutely certain.

This being the case, it is not to be wondered at that when the late
Mr. Hunter, a Scotchman, took a large grazing farm at Tiernaur, his
arrival was at once regar