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A house on Glendahurk Mountain has been burned down, and the cattle of the neighbouring farmers have been turned on to the mountain to pasture at the expense of Mr. Gibbings. Moreover the bailiff has been warned not to interfere, or attempt to scare the cattle and drive them off. Thus the tenant farmers are grazing their cattle for nothing, and, what is more, no man dare meddle with them.
Hunter's mountain neither turf nor sedge could be got within any reasonable distance; and, finally, that they had always enjoyed such right. And so forth. As this was, as already intimated, not in the bond, Mr. Hunter, not very unnaturally, insisted that if the people would not pay him his landlord must, and asked Mr. Gibbings to allow him ten pounds a year off his rent.
Her favourite occupation is to bring down sheaves of letters from other maiden ladies, and insist upon reading them aloud to the assembled family. `I have just had a letter from Louisa Gibbings; I am sure you will like to hear it, she will say calmly, when the poor old parents are enjoying a quiet read after dinner, and we youngsters are in the middle of a game.
It is of course difficult to arrive at any conclusion on the merits of the case. All that is certain is, that the people had long enjoyed privileges which Mr. Gibbings declared to be simple trespass. Finally he told Mr. Hunter he had his bond and must enforce it himself.
"We'll put it at hokey-pokey, nothin' a lump, if you don't mind, sonny," the boatswain went on; "in a nice airy parlour painted white, with a gilt chandelier an' gilt combings to the wainscot." The whole crew listened admiringly, and it seemed they were all in the stupid conspiracy. I resolved, for Johnny's sake, to protest, and that very evening drew Gibbings aside and expostulated with him.
I left Gibbings, and after pacing up and down the deck a few times, stepped to the bulwarks, where a dark figure was leaning and gazing out over the black waters. Johnny was in bed; and a great shame swept over me as I noted the appealing wretchedness of this lonely form. I stepped up and touched him softly on the arm. "Sir, I am come to beg your forgiveness."
None of us have the remotest idea who Louisa Gibbings may be, and don't want to know, but we are bound to listen to three sheets of uninteresting information as to how `My brother in China contemplates a visit home next year. `My garden is looking charming, but the peas are very poor this season. `You will be grieved to hear that our good Mary still suffers acutely from the old complaint, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
The sole remedy open to Mr. Gibbings is civil process for trespass. Should he adopt this course he will probably be safe enough in Dublin, but I am assured that the life of his bailiff will not be worth a day's purchase. WESTPORT, CO. MAYO, Oct. 27th. The way from this place to Tiernaur is through a country, as a Mayo man said to me, "eminently adapted to tourists."
In the present condition of affairs it would certainly require either great courage or profound ignorance on the part of a would-be tenant to impel him to occupy any land under ban. A rational being would almost as soon think of going to help Mr. Boycott to get in his potatoes. For the people of Tiernaur are now face to face only at a safe distance for him with Mr. Gibbings.
Gibbings, of Trinity College, Dublin, and Mr. Stoney, of Rossturk Castle, near at hand. There was a convenient dwelling-house on the part of the farm looking over Clew Bay towards Clare Island, and all was apparently smooth and pleasant. No sooner, however, was Mr. Hunter established there than a difficulty arose.
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