. She would not have been
injured bodily; no soul in Kilfinane would have touched the cake, much
less have eaten the hateful food made and baked and attempted to be
carried to the stronghold of the "tyrant"; but it would have gone ill
with the brave little woman nevertheless. Her husband would have been
compelled to seek elsewhere for a livelihood, for neither farmer nor
tradesman would dare to employ either him or her. Her elder children
would have been pointed at as they went to school, and sent to
Coventry while there; and she would have been refused milk for the
younger ones. Not a potato nor a pound of meal nor an egg could she
have bought all through the hamlet; and if people at a distance had
sold her anything, they would have been intercepted and compelled to
take it back again. The carriers would not have delivered to or taken
parcels from her; she would, in fact, have been very much in the
condition that Eve, according to Lord Byron, thought she could put
Cain into by cursing him.

Fortunately, however, the cake-bearer has escaped, and we fall with
keen appetites upon the not very digestible banquet she has provided.
The blockade has been successfully run, and we celebrate the event
accordingly. We are not so very badly off after all, and in fact have
passed a by no means dull time for the last two days. It is not quite
so easy to frighten our garrison as a pack of sympathising peasants
who attempt no kind of resistance against the mysterious leaders of
the _Jacquerie_. The son of the house and his two grown cousins are
here, the butler and gardener still remain staunch, as well as the
coachman and a couple of bailiffs living outside, all "Boycotted"
also. Moreover, we have a cook and housemaid with us, and two members
of the Royal Constabulary. We have busy times, too. So far as
turkeys, geese, chickens, and eggs, butter and bacon are concerned, we
have enough and to spare within protecting range of rifle and
revolver, but for fresh beef and mutton and flour we must depend upon
Cork. Now the mysterious agent in Cork who sends us the supplies
cannot get them carried nearer to the house than the railway station
at Kilmallock, the interesting little town at which one of the county
members keeps the inn and "runs" the cars, a fact whereof the citizens
are not a little proud. When we receive the news, letter or telegram,
announcing that meat or other stores will arrive by a certain train,
we drive down to meet it