"Bad! yes, you may call it bad. I am ruined, I suppose. There are twenty heifers ready for market next week, and I am told that not a butcher in County Galway will look at one of them." "Then you must send them on to Westmeath; I suppose the Mullingar butchers won't boycott you?" "It's just what they will do." "Then send them on to Dublin." "Who's to take them to Dublin?" said the father, in his distress. "I will if there be no one else. We are not going to be knocked out of time for want of two or three pairs of hands." "There are two policemen here to watch the herd at night. They'd cut the tails off them otherwise as they did over at Ballinrobe last autumn. To whom am I to consign 'em in Dublin? While I am making new arrangements of that kind their time will have gone by. There are five cows should be milked morning and night. Who is to milk them?" "Who is milking them?" "Your sisters are doing it, with the aid of an old woman who has come from Galway. She says she has not long to live, and with the help of half-a-crown a day cares nothing for the Landleaguers. I wish someone would pay me half-a-crown a day, and perhaps I should not care." Then Frank passed on through the house to find his sisters, or Flory as it might be. He had said not a word to his father in regard to Florian, fearing to touch upon a subject which, as he well knew, must be very sore. Had Florian told the truth when the deed was done, Pat Carroll would have been tried at once, and, whether convicted or acquitted, the matter would have been over long ago. In those days Pat Carroll had not become a national or even a county hero. But now he was able to secure the boycotting of his enemy even as far distant as Ballyglunin or Tuam. In the kitchen he found Ada and Edith, who had no comfort in these perilous days except when they could do everything together. At the present moment they were roasting a leg of mutton and boiling potatoes, which Frank knew were intended especially for his own eating. "Well, my girls, you are busy here," he said. "Oh, yes, busy!" said Ada, who had put up her face to be kissed so as not to soil her brother's coat by touching it with her hands. "How is Rachel?" "Rachel is pretty well, I believe. We will not talk of Rachel just at present." "Is anything wrong," asked Edith. "We will not talk about her, not now. What is all this that has happened here?" "We are just boycotted," said Ada; "that's all." "And you think that it's the best joke in the world?" "Think it a joke!" said Edith. "Why we have to be up every morning at five o'clock," said Ada; "and at six we are out with the cows." "It is no joke," said Edith, very seriously. "Papa is broken-hearted about it. Your coming will be of the greatest comfort to us, if only because of the pair of hands you bring. And poor Flory!"