One story told in extenuation of Talbot’s business methods is that a local Deborah undertook to overcome the great colonel of whom everyone else was afraid. He went to her homestead to adjust some land dispute; their words waxed high, until she, unable to dispose of him in any other way, knocked him down, made shafts of the legs of this descendant of the Kings of Connaught, and dragged him to the roadside while his back performed the part of a Canadian summer sled. In his own words, this lady was a true Scotch virago. One day as he sat at dinner her counterpart entered the dining-room, Geoffrey as usual serving. She announced that she had come for a horse, to get provisions from the blockhouse. The latter had been built in the early days at a point midway between Port Talbot and Long Point, the two extremes of the infant settlement, where flour, pork, and other provisions might be imported by boat and then distributed according to the Czar’s judgment. She was told she might have Bob, a quiet, strong horse; but she had set her heart on Jane, the beast kept for the Colonel’s own use and ridden by none else. Most emphatically she was told she should not have Jane. She seized the carving-fork and threatened “to run it through him;” so, in his own words as he told the story to a friend, “I had to holloa to Geoffrey to give the Scotch devil the mare.” To protect himself as much as possible from intrusion he had a window adjusted on the primeval post-office system, the pane arranged so that it would open and shut from within. During the audiences Geoffrey stood behind him to hand down the maps, and the intending purchaser was left on the path outside. The inevitable query was, “Well, what do you want?” The trembling applicant made an answer, the land was given or refused as the case might be, and to speed the parting guest the equally inevitable concluding remark, “Geoffrey, turn on the dogs,” followed. It was destined that his third downfall should be accomplished by a Highlander. The latter had several glasses of brandy at the inn near by, and when the landlord demurred at giving more, “You must let me have it,” said the other, “for I am going to see that old Irish devil, Colonel Talbot, who took my land from me, and if he will not give it back I’ll give him the soundest thrashing a man ever got, for I will smash every bone in his body.” He was given the desired extra glass, and somewhat exhilarated reached the historic pane, through which justice, land, curses and kindness were dispensed according to the humour of the hour. An Englishman is always supposed to be in his best mood after dinner; with the Colonel time after that function was sacred, and all business had to be transacted before it. Up came the truculent Highlander this day, and out came the usual “Well, and what do you want?” The grievance was explained; he wanted his land back again. The refusal was prompt, and as prompt the blow that was aimed in return.