or more just not
to be bothered." Upon this Mr. Tener told me of a shopkeeper at Loughrea
in a large way of business, a man with seven or eight thousand pounds,
who, finding his goods about to be seized after the agent had turned a
sharp strategic corner on him, and unexpectedly got into his shop, was
about to own up to his defeat, and make a fair settlement, when the
secretary of the League appeared, and requested a private talk with him.
In a quarter of an hour the tradesman reappeared looking rather sullen
and crestfallen. He said he couldn't pay, and must let the goods be
taken. So taken they were, and duly put up under the process and sold.
He bought them in himself, paying all the costs.

Presently two cars appeared. We got upon one, Mr. Tener driving a
spirited nag, and taking on the seat with him a loaded carbine-rifle.
Two armed policeman followed us upon the other, keeping at such a
distance as would enable them easily to cover any one approaching from
either side of the roadway. It quite took me back to the delightful days
of 1866 in Mexico, when we used to ride out to picnics at the Rincon at
Orizaba armed to the teeth, and ready at a moment's notice to throw the
four-in-hand mule-wagons into a hollow square, and prepare to receive
cavalry. As it seems to be perfectly well understood that the regular
price paid for shooting a designated person (they call it "knocking" him
in these parts) is the ridiculously small sum of four pounds, and that
two persons who divide this sum are always detailed by the organisers of
outrage to "knock" an objectionable individual, it is obvious that too
much care can hardly be taken by prudent people in coming and going
through such a country. Fortunately for the people most directly
concerned to avoid these unpleasantnesses a systematic leakage seems to
exist in the machinery of mischief. The places where the oaths of this
local "Mafia" are administered, for instance, are well known. A roadside
near a chapel is frequently selected--and this for two or three obvious
reasons. The sanctity of the spot may be supposed to impress the
neophyte; and if the police or any other undesirable people should
suddenly come upon the officiating adepts and the expectant acolyte, a
group on the roadside is not necessarily a criminal gathering--though I
do not see why, in such times, our old American college definition of a
"group" as a gathering of "three or more persons" should not be adopted