the prospect of getting a tenant is may be estimated by the remark
made to me by a very well-instructed person living close by--"If the
landlord were to give me that farm for nothing, stock it for me, and
give me a cash balance to go on with, I would gratefully but firmly
decline the generous gift. No consideration on earth would induce me
to occupy Hunter's farm." In the present condition of affairs it would
certainly require either great courage or profound ignorance on the
part of a would-be tenant to impel him to occupy any land under ban. A
rational being would almost as soon think of going to help Mr. Boycott
to get in his potatoes. For the people of Tiernaur are now face to
face--only at a safe distance for him--with Mr. Gibbings. The cause of
the new difficulty is as follows: Mrs. Hunter having given up the
farm, it was applied for by some of the neighbours, who offered a
similar rent to that paid by her. Either because the landlord did not
want the applicants as tenants, or because he thought the land
improved, he demanded a higher rent. This is the one unpardonable
crime--an attempt to raise the rent. For his own reasons the landlord
does not choose to let what is called Hunter's farm to the Tiernaur
people on the old terms, and the stranger who should venture upon it
would need be girt with _robur et aes triplex_.

Within the last few days this proprietary deadlock has been enlivened
by an act which has caused much conversation in this part of Ireland.
A house on Glendahurk Mountain has been burned down, and the cattle of
the neighbouring farmers have been turned on to the mountain to
pasture at the expense of Mr. Gibbings. Moreover the bailiff has been
warned not to interfere, or attempt to scare the cattle and drive them
off. Thus the tenant farmers are grazing their cattle for nothing,
and, what is more, no man dare meddle with them. The sole remedy open
to Mr. Gibbings is civil process for trespass. Should he adopt this
course he will probably be safe enough in Dublin, but I am assured
that the life of his bailiff will not be worth a day's purchase.

III.

A LAND MEETING.

WESTPORT, CO. MAYO, _Oct. 27th._

The way from this place to Tiernaur is through a country, as a Mayo
man said to me, "eminently adapted to tourists." Not very far off lies
Croagh Patrick, the sacred mountain from which St. Patrick cursed the
snakes and other venomous creatures and drove them from Ireland. I was
assured