of manners and cultivation of mind; for he spared no expense on their
education, as well in his original as in his subsequent condition of
life; besides that at this period, and for a long time previous, the
County of Limerick was the great school-house, not only of Munster, but
of all Ireland--vide Carleton's "Poor Scholar."

The sudden departure of the Bolands from the intercourse and intimate
acquaintance of their former companions and neighbors, as well as the
long brooding hatred and opposition of the people to the payment of
tithes, soon gave rise to loud murmurs and sarcastic retrospective
observations against them; and people far and near took every occasion
to offend and insult them--both men and women---wherever and whenever
an opportunity of doing so, in a galling manner, offered. Often were
the Misses Boland asked, when mounted on their side-saddles, did they
remember when their mother used to be driving her cart-load of tankards
of sour milk to the market of Limerick, and sitting there for days
retailing it at a penny a gallon, &c.; and as often were the young
brothers asked when bursting over an old neighbor's fence, in scarlet
and buckskin, if they remembered when their father and mother bore an
active hand and shoulder to the carving out and spreading of the manure
to the fields, &c.

Far from being abashed at all this, the Bolands only sought ampler
opportunities to annoy and exasperate their ill-wishers by more
imperious airs to them, and a closer attendance to the gentlemanly
sports of the country, but still they gave no tangible cause to quarrel
broadly with them. While matters were going on in this way, they
received a nocturnal anonymous letter, ordering them to send a few of
their abundant stock of arms to a certain lonely place, for the benefit,
of the popular legislators of that turbulent county. This summons the