But Coleman, whose suspicion by now was a certainty, refused to be drawn, and replied that he knew nothing against the Foleys, and that they were quiet respectable neighbours. For some time the officer tried his best to get Coleman to give evidence against Foley, but at last, finding it was useless, left, taking his prisoner with him. By now the Colemans were too unhappy to go to bed, and sat round the fire in silence. After an hour there came a third knock, and again the officer appeared; but this time Coleman could see quite a different expression on his face, and in a brutal voice, not taking the trouble to hide his brogue, he bade the unfortunate herd “get up out of that and come outside.” Coleman followed his tormentor outside, and there found a mob of young men and boys waiting for him, who proceeded to kick him along the road for a mile, when he could go no farther, and fell on the road. They then tied his hands and ankles, and left him in the middle of the road for a police car to run over him. And here he lay all night in the rain. The next day was market-day in Ballybor, and many of the country people started early in their carts for the town, and though none drove over the herd, yet one and all passed by on the other side. Luckily, when the herd was nearly gone from cold and exposure, the good Samaritan appeared in the shape of Carew driving to Ballybor, and in a short time he had Coleman back at Rossbane in front of a big turf fire; and after placing him in charge of the cook, brought the herd’s family to a cottage in the yard, and then drove into Ballybor to see Blake. But the D.I. had his hands too full to be able to give protection to individuals. At this time, next to Sinn Fein, the Transport Union was the strongest party in the west, and being composed of landless men, its main object was to gain land for its members by all and every means in its power, with the result that their attention was concentrated on outing all men with four hundred acres or more in their possession, and next would come the men with three hundred acres, and so on down the scale. The farmer with forty acres or thereabouts—the best class of small farmer in the west, and if let alone the most law-abiding, as they are numerous and possess something worth holding on to—soon realised where this would lead to, and tried to apply the brakes. They would have succeeded but for their younger sons, who, in the ordinary course of events, would have found good employment in the States, but under present circumstances have to remain at home helping to make small fortunes for their parents. It is this class of young men who, with the shop boys, form the rank and file of the I.R.A., and in the case of the farmers’ sons it is the western peasants’ usual characteristic of “land hunger” which forms the chief driving power.