a dozen bullocks from a boycotted farmer out Limerick way."

"And is that all?" asked Harold, in astonishment. Notwithstanding
his regard for his friend, he had never doubted that there must have
been some appalling piece of persecution to justify this determined
ostracism.

"All!" echoed Jack, laughing. "You don't know much of Ireland, my
boy, or you wouldn't ask that question. We bought cattle that had
been raised by a farmer on land from which a defaulting tenant had
been evicted. Men have been shot in these parts for less than that."

"Pleasant state of affairs," remarked the New-Yorker.

"I don't much care," Jack went on, lightly. "We're promised a
couple of Emergency men from Ulster in a few days, and that will
take the weight of the work off our hands. It isn't as if it were
a busy time. No crops to be saved in winter, you see, and no farm
work except stall-feeding the cattle. That can't wait."

"But your sisters--all the work of that big house--" began Harold,
who was thinking of Polly.

"We expect two Protestant girls down from Belfast to-morrow. That'll
be all right. We get all our grub from Dublin,--they won't sell us
anything in Ballydoon,--and we mean to keep on doing so, boycott or
no boycott. We have been about the best customers to the shopkeepers
round here, and it'll come near ruining the town--and serve them
right," the young man added, with the first touch of bitterness he
had displayed in speaking of the persecution of his family.