When the time came round, Frank Jones started for Ballinasloe, with his father\'s cattle and with Peter to help him. They did succeed in getting a boy to go with them, who had been seduced by a heavy bribe to come down for the purpose from Ballinasloe to Morony Castle. As he had been used to cattle, Peter\'s ignorance and Frank\'s also were of less account. They drove the cattle to Tuam, and there got them on the railway, the railway with its servants being beyond the power of the boycotters. At Ballinasloe they could not sell the cattle, as the name of Mr. Jones of Morony had become terribly notorious throughout County Galway. But arrangements had been made to send them to a salesman up in Dublin, and from Ballinasloe they had gone under the custody of Peter and the boy. No attempt was made absolutely to harm the beasts, or even to stop them in the streets. But throughout the town it seemed to be perfectly understood that they were the property of Philip Jones of Morony Castle, and that Philip Jones had been boycotted by the League. The poor beasts were sent on to Dublin without a truss of hay among them, and even Frank himself was refused a meal at the first inn at which he had called. He did afterwards procure accommodation; but he heard while in the house, that the innkeeper was threatened for what he had done. Had it not been that Peter had brought with him a large basket of provisions for himself and the boy, they, too, would have been forced to go on dinnerless and supperless to Dublin.
Frank, on his way back home, resolved that he would call on Mr. Daly at Daly\'s Bridge, near Castle Blakeney. It was Daly\'s wont to live at Daly\'s Bridge when the hounds were not hunting, though he would generally go four or five times a week from Daly\'s Bridge to the kennels. To Castle Blakeney a public car was running, and the public car did not dare, or probably did not wish, to boycott anyone. He walked up to the open door at Daly\'s Bridge and soon found himself in the presence of Black Tom Daly. "So you are boycotted?" said Tom.
"Horse, foot, and dragoons," said Frank.
"What\'s to come of it, I wonder?" Tom as he said this was sitting at an open window making up some horse\'s drug to which was attached some very strong odour. "I am boycotted too, and the poor hounds, which have given hours of amusement to many of these wretches, for which they have not been called upon to pay a shilling. I shall have to sell the pack, I\'m afraid," said Tom, sadly.
"Not yet, I hope, Mr. Daly."
"What do you mean by that? Who\'s to keep them without any subscription? And who\'s to subscribe without any prospect of hunting? For the matter of that who\'s to feed the poor dumb brutes? One pack will be boycotted after another till not a pack of hounds will be wanted in all Ireland."
"Has the same thing happened to any other pack?" asked Frank.
"Certainly it has. They turned out against the Muskerry; and there\'s been a row in Kildare. We are only at the beginning of it yet."
"I don\'t suppose it will go on for ever," said Frank.
"Why don\'t you suppose so? What\'s to be the end of it all? Do you see any way out of it?—for I do not. Does your father see his way to bringing those meadows back into his hands? I\'m told that some of those fellows shot at Clayton the other day down at Headford. How are we to expect a man like Clayton to come forward and be shot at in that fashion? As far as I can see there will be no possibility for anyone to live in this country again. Of course it\'s all over with me. I haven\'t got any rents to speak of, and the only property I possess is now useless."
"What property?" asked Frank.
"What property?" rejoined Tom in a voice of anger. "What property? Ain\'t the hounds property, or were property a few weeks ago? Who\'ll subscribe for next year? We had a meeting in February, you know, and the fellows put down their names the same as ever. But they can\'t be expected to pay when there will be no coverts for them to draw. The country can do nothing to put a stop to this blackguardism. When they\'ve passed this Coercion Bill they\'re going to have some sort of Land Bill,—just a law to give away the land to somebody. What\'s to come of the poor country with such men as Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright to govern it? They\'re the two very worst men in the whole empire for governing a country. Martial law with a regiment in each county, and a strong colonel to carry it out,—that is the only way of governing left us. I don\'t pretend to understand politics, but every child can see that. And you should do away with the constituencies, at any rate for the next five years. What are you to expect with such a set of men as that in Parliament,—men whom no one would speak to if they were to attempt to ride to hounds in County Galway. It makes me sick when I hear of it."
Such were Tom Daly\'s sad outlooks into the world. And sad as they were, they seemed to be justified by circumstances as they operated upon him. There could be no hunting in County Galway next session unless things were to change very much for the better. And there was no prospect of any such change. "It\'s nonsense talking of a poor devil like me being ruined. You ask me what property I have got."
"I don\'t think I ever asked that," said Frank.
"It don\'t matter. You\'re quite welcome. You\'ll find eight or nine pair of leather breeches in that press in there. And round about the room somewhere there are over a dozen pair of top-boots. They are the only available property I have got. They are paid for, and I can do what I please with them. The four or five hundred acres over there on the road to Tuam are mostly bog, and are strictly entailed so that I cannot touch them. As there is not a tenant will pay the rent since I\'ve been boycotted it doesn\'t make much matter. I have not had a shilling from them for more than twelve months; and I don\'t suppose I ever shall see another. The poor hounds are eating their heads off; as fine a pack of hounds as any man ever owned, as far as their number goes. I can\'t keep them, and who\'ll buy them? They tell me I must send them over to Tattersall\'s. But as things are now I don\'t suppose they\'ll pay the expense. I don\'t care who knows it, but I haven\'t three hundred pounds in the world. And I\'m over fifty years of age. What do you think of that as the condition for a man to be brought to?"
Frank Jones had never heard Daly speak at such length before, nor had he given him credit for so much eloquence. Nor, indeed, had anyone in the County of Galway heard him speak so many words till this misfortune had fallen upon him. And he would still be silent and reserved with all except a few hunting men whom he believed to be strongly influenced by the same political feeling as he was himself. Here was he boycotted most cruelly, but not more cruelly than was Mr. Jones of Morony Castle. The story of Florian Jones had got about the county, and had caused Mr. Jones to be pitied greatly by such men as Tom Daly. "His own boy to t............