Bridget returned to the Hanleys’ house to find her boxes packed and dumped in the road, together with her bicycle, and the door of the house locked, and this in the middle of the night. After trying in vain to gain admittance she sat down on one of her boxes and started to cry. Towards dawn she again made a piteous appeal to the Hanleys to be allowed to stay in their house for the rest of the night, and that she would leave the following day; and for answer Mrs Hanley cursed her, and warned her that if she was not gone before daylight her hair would be cut off, and “God only knew what else would happen to her.” In a blind terror she mounted her bicycle and rode madly into Ballybor, where she had to wait some hours in the streets before she could gain admittance to a lodging-house. Bridget was made of the right stuff, and with the daylight and the contact with friendly human beings her courage returned, and she went to see the auctioneer once more, but received cold comfort. The man had been warned not to hold the auction, but was willing to, provided he had police protection (he saw his trade slipping away if he did not), and suggested that she should go and see the D.I. Blake listened patiently to her tale of woe—he already knew the part she had played with the Cloonalla Volunteers, but liked the girl’s looks and her pluck, and at the end promised her protection for the auction, but warned her that he could not protect her afterwards, and advised her to get out of the country as soon as she could. Bridget then hired a car and drove out to Cloonalla to try and collect her belongings. The boxes were still there by the roadside, but empty. And on going on to her farms she found that the fences and gates were smashed and her cattle gone. She tried in vain to get information of them, but found that not a man, woman, or child would tell her anything. Returning to Ballybor, she again saw Blake, who promised to send out police to try and find her cattle. The following day the police went out to Cloonalla, rounded up the first score of men they met, made them build up the fences, mend the gates, and lastly, gave them two hours to return Bridget’s cattle. The I.R.A. now turned the full blast of that potent weapon, the boycott, on to the unfortunate Bridget. Not a soul would or rather dare speak to her—at any rate in public. Little children meeting her in the streets or country roads ran away, fearing lest she might cast an evil eye on them. Shopkeepers were forbidden to supply any goods to her, and the lodging-house people would have put her out on the streets but for the interference of the D.I. By this time Blake was determined to see her through, and when the auctioneer attempted to rat, made him think better of it and stick to his agreement with Bridget.