It must be confessed that the proprietress who has a police detachment opposite to her gate, and lives in a house defended by iron bars and chains, has some reason for her precautions against surprise. She was shot at through the window of her own house not very long ago. Now this experience of being shot at acts variously on different minds. Mr. Smith, the Marquis of Sligo's agent, whose son returned fire and killed the intending assassin, took the matter as an incident of business in the West, and is not a whit less cheery and happy than before the attack at Claggan Mountain. It is also true that Miss Gardiner is not an atom less personally brave than Mr. Smith. It is said that she carries a revolver in the pocket of her shooting-jacket, and only asks for an escort of armed constabulary when she goes into Ballina. But she, nevertheless, thinks it well to convert her home into a fortress--perhaps the only one of the kind now extant in Europe. Here she dwells with a lady-companion, Miss Pringle, far out of range of such social life as remains in the county, occupied nearly exclusively with the management of her estate; a matter which, far from concerning herself alone, entails great vexation, embarrassment, and expense upon others. The sending of bodies of constabulary half a hundred strong to protect the officers of the law serving writs on Miss Gardiner's tenantry is a troublesome and costly business, and has the effect of stirring up strife and exciting public opinion to no small degree. As her property is widely scattered over Northern Mayo, there is generally something going on in her behalf. One day there is an ejectment at Ballycastle; the next an abortive attempt to evict at Cloontakilla. In the opinion of the poorer peasantry this eccentric lady is a malevolent fiend, an "extherminathor," a tyrant striving to make the lives of the poor so wretched as to drive them off her estate. "A sthrange lady is she, Sorr," cried one of her tenants to me. "Och, she's a divil of a woman, entoirely. All she wants is to hunt the poor off the face of the wor-r-rold." There are, however, to this question, as to every Irish question, two sides--if not more. If Miss Gardiner "hunts" her tenants off her estate, Lord Erne's people are just now trying their best to perform the same operation upon Captain Boycott.