In the evening Mr. Tener gave me the details of some cases of direct intimidation with the names of the tenants concerned. One man, whose farm he visited, told him he had paid his rent not long before to the previous agent. "Well," said Mr. Tener, "show me your receipt!" On this the tenant said that he dare not keep the receipt about him, nor even in the house, lest it should be demanded by the emissaries of the League, who went round to keep the tenants up to the "Plan of Campaign," and that it was hidden in his stable. And he went out to the stable and brought it in. This, he had reason to believe, was not an uncommon case.[12] The same man, wishing to take a grass farm which the people hoped the agent would consent to have "cut up" was asked to give two names on a promissory-note to pay the rent. He demurred to this, and after a parley said, "Would a certificate do?" upon which he pulled out an old tobacco-box, and carefully unfolded from it a bank certificate of deposit for a hundred pounds sterling! This tenant held eleven Irish, or more than seventeen English, acres, and his yearly rent was £11, 16s. 6d. The people before this agitation began were generally quiet, thrifty, and industrious. They were great sheep-raisers. An old law of the Irish Parliament had exempted sheep, but not cattle or crops, from distraint, with an eye to encouraging the woollen interest in Ireland. As to the sale of tenant-right in Ireland, he told me a curious story. One woman, a widow, whom he named, owed two year' rent on a holding in Ulster at £4 a year. She was abundantly able to pay, but for her own reasons preferred to be evicted, and, finally, by an understanding with him, offered her tenant-right for sale. A man who had made money in iron-mines in the County of Durham was a bidder, and finally offered £240 for the holding. It was knocked down to him. He then saw the agent, who told him he had paid too much. The woman was then appealed to, and she admitted that the agent was right. But it was shown that others had offered £200, and the woman finally agreed to take, and received, that amount in gold, being fifty years' purchase! CHAPTER X.