s property the residence in
which he died in the spring of 1904. He and his wife, an English lady,
who was justly beloved for her wide charity, were one night, after
dinner, sitting in their drawing-room, when a party of masked
moonlighters walked in. One of them held a pistol to her head, and told
her not to scream or move, else he would shoot her. Another performed
the same kindly office for Mr. Bernard, whilst the rest ransacked the
house for arms and money.

Mrs. Bernard noticed that the hands of the man who was threatening her
with violence were not those of an agricultural labourer, because they
were small and white. On the strength of this clue, the police arrested
a little tailor in the village, and she courageously identified him in
court, though every possible pressure was brought on her not to do so.
He was sentenced to several years' imprisonment, and his friends vowed
they would make it hot for Mrs. Bernard, and ever after she has been
protected by two or three constables. The police did not live in Fahagh
Court, but in a hut specially built for them a few yards off, and at
night they always came into the house. To the very last days of Mr.
Bernard's life whenever he and she went to pay a call on a neighbour,
two policemen followed them either on a car or on bicycles, and I have
never heard any reasons advanced to show that these precautions were
superfluous.

Meeting this little party on the highway was the only thing in the
twentieth century which brought home to the British tourist the terrible
deeds which blackened Kerry in the eighties.

I have always looked on the light side of life, even when it has seemed
blackest, and so I will not close this chapter without a more cheery
anecdote.

There was a good deal of friction among Land Leaguers over the amount of
relief money and other remuneration doled out by the rebel authorities.
This seldom reached a more droll pitch than in the complaint of a girl
at Rossbeigh, who wrote to a prominent member of Parliament--since
deceased--that another girl had been awarded a pound for booing at a
sergeant, 'while I, who broke a policeman's head, never got so much as
would pay for a candle to the Blessed Virgin.'

Sometimes the crafty Paddy utilised the agitation for his own purposes,
as the following example will prove.

A farmer's house was fired into, but no one could tell the reason why,
for he had not paid any rent and was a good Land Leaguer. He was asked