TOM DALY IS BOYCOTTED.
When the time came round, Frank Jones started for Ballinasloe, with
his father's cattle and with Peter to help him. They did succeed in
getting a boy to go with them, who had been seduced by a heavy bribe
to come down for the purpose from Ballinasloe to Morony Castle. As he
had been used to cattle, Peter's ignorance and Frank's also were of
less account. They drove the cattle to Tuam, and there got them on
the railway, the railway with its servants being beyond the power of
the boycotters. At Ballinasloe they could not sell the cattle, as the
name of Mr. Jones of Morony had become terribly notorious throughout
County Galway. But arrangements had been made to send them to a
salesman up in Dublin, and from Ballinasloe they had gone under the
custody of Peter and the boy. No attempt was made absolutely to harm
the beasts, or even to stop them in the streets. But throughout the
town it seemed to be perfectly understood that they were the property
of Philip Jones of Morony Castle, and that Philip Jones had been
boycotted by the League. The poor beasts were sent on to Dublin
without a truss of hay among them, and even Frank himself was refused
a meal at the first inn at which he had called. He did afterwards
procure accommodation; but he heard while in the house, that the
innkeeper was threatened for what he had done. Had it not been that
Peter had brought with him a large basket of provisions for himself
and the boy, they, too, would have been forced to go on dinnerless
and supperless to Dublin.
Frank, on his way back home, resolved that he would call on Mr. Daly
at Daly's Bridge, near Castle Blakeney. It was Daly's wont to live
at Daly's Bridge when the hounds were not hunting, though he would
generally go four or five times a week from Daly's Bridge to the
kennels. To Castle Blakeney a public car was running, and the public
car did not dare, or probably did not wish, to boycott anyone. He
walked up to the open door at Daly's Bridge and soon found himself in
the presence of Black Tom Daly. "So you are boycotted?" said Tom.
"Horse, foot, and dragoons," said Frank.
"What's to come of it, I wonder?" Tom as he said this was sitting at
an open window making up some horse's drug to which was attached some
very strong odour. "I am boycotted too, and the poor hounds, which
have given hours of amusement to many of these wretches, for which
they have not been called upon to pay a shilling. I shall have to
sell the pack, I'm afraid," said Tom, sadly.
"Not yet, I hope, Mr. Daly."
"What do you mean by that? Who's to keep them without any
subscription? And who's to subscribe without any prospect of hunting?
For the matter of that who's to feed the poor dumb brutes? One pack
will be boycotted after another till not a pack of hounds will be
wanted in all Ireland."
"Has the same thing happened to any other pack?" asked Frank.
"Certainly it has. They turned out against the Muskerry; and there's
been a row in Kildare. We are only at the beginning of it yet."
"I don't suppose it will go on for ever," said Frank.
"Why don't you suppose so? What's to be the end of it all? Do you see
any way out of it?--for I do not. Does your father see his way to
bringing those meadows back into his hands? I'm told that some of
those fellows shot at Clayton the other day down at Headford. How are
we to expect a man like Clayton to come forward and be shot at in
that fashion? As far as I can see there will be no possibility for
anyone to live in this country again. Of course it's all over with
me. I haven't got any rents to speak of, and the only property I
possess is now useless."
"What property?" asked Frank.
"What property?" rejoined Tom in a voice of anger. "What property?
Ain't the hounds property, or were property a few weeks ago? Who'll
subscribe for next year? We had a meeting in February, you know, and
the fellows put down their names the same as ever. But they can't be
expected to pay when there will be no coverts for them to draw. The
country can do nothing to put a stop to this blackguardism. When
they've passed this Coercion Bill they're going to have some sort
of Land Bill,--just a law to give away the land to somebody. What's
to come of the poor country with such men as Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
Bright to govern it? They're the two very worst men in the whole
empire for governing a country. Martial law with a regiment in each
county, and a strong colonel to carry it out,--that is the only
way of governing left us. I don't pretend to understand politics,
but every child can see that. And you should do away with the
constituencies, at any rate for the next five years. What are you to
expect with such a set of men as that in Parliament,--men whom no one
would speak to if they were to attempt to ride to hounds in County
Galway. It makes me sick when I hear of it."
Such were Tom Daly's sad outlooks into the world. And sad as they
were, they seemed to be justified by circumstances as they operated
upon him. There could be no hunting in County Galway next session
unless things were to change very much for the better. And there was
no prospect of any such change. "It's nonsense talking of a poor
devil like me being ruined. You ask me what property I have got."
"I don't think I ever asked that," said Frank.
"It don't matter. You're quite welcome. You'll find eight or nine
pair of leather breeches in that press in there. And round about the
room somewhere there are over a dozen pair of top-boots. They are the
only available property I have got. They are paid for, and I can do
what I please with them. The four or five hundred acres over there on
the road to Tuam are mostly bog, and are strictly entailed so that I
cannot touch them. As there is not a tenant will pay the rent since
I've been boycotted it doesn't make much matter. I have not had a
shilling from them for more than twelve months; and I don't suppose
I ever shall see another. The poor hounds are eating their heads off;
as fine a pack of hounds as any man ever owned, as far as their
number goes. I can't keep them, and who'll buy them? They tell me I
must send them over to Tattersall's. But as things are now I don't
suppose they'll pay the expense. I don't care who knows it, but I
haven't three hundred pounds in the world. And I'm over fifty years
of age. What do you think of that as the condition for a man to be
brought to?"
Frank Jones had never heard Daly speak at such length before, nor had
he given him credit for so much eloquence. Nor, indeed, had anyone
in the County of Galway heard him speak so many words till this
misfortune had fallen upon him. And he would still be silent and
reserved with all except a few hunting men whom he believed to be
strongly influenced by the same political feeling as he was himself.
Here was he boycotted most cruelly, but not more cruelly than was Mr.
Jones of Morony Castle. The story of Florian Jones had got about the
county, and had caused Mr. Jones to be pitied greatly by such men as
Tom Daly. "His own boy to turn against him!" Tom had said. "And to
become a Papist! A boy of ten years old to call himself a Papist, as
if he would know anything about it. And then to lie,--to lie like
that! I feel that his case is almost worse than mine." Therefore he
had burst out with his sudden eloquence to Frank Jones, whom he had
liked. "Oh, yes! I can send you over to Woodlawn Station. I have
got a horse and car left about the place. Here's William Persse of
Galway. He's the stanchest man we have in the county, but even he can
do nothing."
Then Mr. Persse rode into the yard,--that Mr. Persse who, when the
hounds met at Ballytowngal, had so strongly dissuaded Daly from using
his pistol. He was a man who was reputed to have a good income, or at
any rate a large estate,--though the two things at the present moment
were likely to have a very various meaning. But he was a man less
despondent in his temperament than Tom Daly, and one that was likely
to prevail with Tom by the strength of his character. "Well, Tom,"
said Persse, as he walked into the house, "how are things using you
now? How are you, Jones? I'm afraid your father is getting it rather
hot at Morony Castle."
"They've boycotted us, that's all."
"So I understand. Is it not odd that some self-appointed individual
should send out an edict, and that suddenly all organised modes of
living among people should be put a stop to! Here's Tom not allowed
to get a packet of greaves into his establishment unless he sends to
Dublin for it."
"Nor to have it sent over here," said Tom, "unless I'll send my own
horse and cart to fetch it. And every man and boy I have about the
place is desired to leave me at the command of some d----d O'Toole,
whose father kept a tinker's shop somewhere in County Mayo, and whose
mother took in washing."
There was a depth of scorn intended to be conveyed by all this,
because in Daly's estimation County Mayo was but a poor county to
live in, as it had not for many a year possessed an advertised pack
of fox-hounds. And the O'Tooles were not one of the tribes of Galway,
or a clan especially esteemed in that most aristocratic of the
western counties.
"Have all the helpers gone?"
"I haven't asked them to stay; but unless they have stayed of their
own accord I have just shaken hands with them. It's all that one
gentleman can do to another when he meets him."
"Mr. Daly is talking of selling the hounds," said Frank Jones.
"Not quite yet, Tom," said Mr. Persse. "You mustn't do anything in a
hurry."
"They'll have to starve if they remain here," said the master of
hounds.
"I have come over here to say a word about them. I don't suppose this
kind of thing will last for ever, you know."
"Can you see any end to it?" said the other.
"Not as yet I can't, except that troubles when they come generally
do have an end. We always think that evils will last for ever,--and
blessings too. When two-year-old ewes went up to three pound ten at
Ballinasloe, we thought that we were to get that price for ever, but
they were soon down to two seventeen six; and when we had had two
years of the potato famine, we thought that there would never be
another potato in County Galway. For the last five years we've had
them as fine at Doneraile as ever I saw them. Nobody is ever quite
ruined, or quite has his fortune made."
"I am very near the ruin," said Tom Daly.
"I would struggle to hold on a little longer yet," said the other.
"How many horses have you got here and at Ahaseragh?"
"There are something over a dozen," said Tom. "There may be
fifteen in all. I was thinking of sending a draught over to
Tattersall's next week. There are some of them would not be worth a
five-and-twenty-pound note when you got them there!"
"Well, now I'll tell you what I propose. You shall send over
four or five to be summered at Doneraile. There is grass enough
there, and though I can't pay my debts, my credit is good at the
corn-chandler's." Black Tom, as he heard this, sat still looking
blacker than ever. He was a man who hated to have a favour offered
to him. But he could bear the insult better from Persse of Doneraile
than from anyone else in the county. "I've talked the matter over
with Lynch--"
"D---- Lynch," said Daly. He didn't dislike Sir Jasper, but Sir
Jasper did not stand quite so high in his favour as did Mr. Persse of
Doneraile.
"You needn't d---- anybody; but just listen to me. Sir Jasper says
that he will take three, and Nicholas Bodkin will do the same."
"They are both baronets," said Daly. "I hate a man with a handle to
his name; he always seems to me to be stuck-up, as though he demanded
something more than other people. There is that Lord Ardrahan--"
"A very good fellow too. Don't you be an ass. Lord Ardrahan has
offered to take three more."
"I knew it," said Tom.
"It's not as though any favour were offered or received. Though the
horses are your own property, they are kept for the services of the
hunt. We all understand very well how things are circumstanced at
present."
"How do you think I am to feed my hounds if you take away the horses
which they would eat?" said Daly, with an attempt at a grim joke.
But after the joke Tom became sad again, almost to tears, and he
allowed his friend to make almost what arrangements he pleased for
distributing both hounds and horses among the gentry of the hunt.
"And when they are gone," said he, "I am to sit here alone with
nothing on earth to do. What on earth is to become of me when I have
not a hound left to give a dose of physic to?"
"We'll not leave you in such a sad strait as that," said Mr. Persse.
"It will be sad enough. If you had had a pack of hounds to look after
for thirty summers, you wouldn't like to get rid of them in a hurry.
I'm like an old nurse who is sending her babies out, or some mother,
rather, who is putting her children into the workhouse because she
cannot feed them herself. It is sad, though you don't see it in that
light."
Frank Jones got home to Castle Morony that night full of sorrow and
trouble. The cattle had been got off to Dublin in their starved
condition, but he, as he had come back, had been boycotted every yard
of the way. He could get in no car, nor yet in all Tuam could he
secure the services of a boy to carry his bag for him. He learned in
the town that the girls had sent over to purchase a joint of meat,
but had been refused at every shop. "Is trade so plentiful?" asked
Frank, "that you can afford to do without it?"
"We can't afford to do with it," said the butcher, "if it's to come
from Morony Castle."