Mr. Thompson was one of the first adherents and even one of the organisers of the Cork Defence Union. He, therefore, at once thought of applying to it for help in his embarrassment. The Cork Defence Union was equal to the circumstances. In two days it supplied twelve determined mowers from England, who arrived escorted by a picket of cavalry and a company of infantry. This haymaking was useful for the instruction of the troops. The rules of the service when in campaign were strictly observed. Every morning the cavalry reconnoitred the country, ready to fall back upon the infantry, who were drawn up in battle array on the edge of the field, and during the night advanced posts guarded every haystack. Thanks to these wise precautions, and also to the fact that there was very little rain, the hay was gathered in at the end of four days. But when making up his accounts Mr. Thompson found with some bitterness that agriculture is really not remunerative when it is carried on under military protection.
However, he found a little consolation in the fact that, questionable though his own triumph might be, the partisans of the Land League were greatly troubled by it. In place of material results, he had secured a moral victory. He saw the proof of this result in the great number of meetings that immediately took place in the neighbourhood, meetings attended by two or three thousand people. The parish priest of Shaunganeen who was president of the local Land League, made a speech, and expressed himself with the greatest violence. He declared in allusion to Mr. Thompson that his name “smelt of blood,” and he made his auditors pass the most energetic resolutions. But here I must make a few observations; boycotting has become so common in Ireland, that gradually a kind of jurisprudence has been introduced into its application. Thus, there is a first degree of boycotting, which is not applied directly to persons. A refractory landlord finds his produce or his property interdicted. He can neither let the one nor sell the other. Usually, he hastens to yield, apologises, pays a fine, and things remain as they were. But if he still resists, the measures taken against him begin to assume a more personal character. He can no longer buy anything that he may require, for whoever sells anything to him, or renders him any service, is at once excommunicated. Until then the League takes the whole responsibility of its actions. Its sentences are often placarded. In every case they are announced in the party newspapers. It is not until the series of mutilations of cattle, arson, and attempts at murder, which form the third degree of boycotting, commences, that it always disclaims all responsibility. Now, until the memorable day on which Mr. Thompson gathered in his hay, thanks to the skilful manœuvres of a little “army corps,” only the first degree of boycotting had been applied to him, and the situation might have been indefinitely prolonged without any perceptible aggravation. But all was spoilt, because on the one hand, the League would not submit to a defeat, and above all, Mr. Thompson was not content to triumph quietly. He at once wrote a letter, which was published in all the newspapers, in which, after thanking the Union, he related the events that had taken place, announced the success of his proceeding, and urged all those who were in the same position to have recourse to the same means. He did not know the wasps’ nest he was throwing himself into, but he soon learnt. The letter appeared on a Saturday. The following day about two o’clock, he saw a well-meaning friend arrive. He had walked the three miles that separated the house from the town, in order to warn him that the League were holding a meeting, and he had great reason to believe that he was the subject of it. Mr. Thompson, still elated by his success, would not believe it. But the same evening at seven o’clock, the constabulary sergeant sent a man to him, warning him to take precautions, and particularly to be careful to remain indoors, for serious things might happen during the night. Mr. Thompson, who is unmarried, lived at that time with one of his sisters, a young girl of fifteen; two servants, who had been in his service for a long time and upon whom he thought he could rely, slept in the house. They had an abundance of arms, and, what was more important, the doors and window shutters had been lined with sheet iron during the Fenian insurrection. They hastened to barricade the house, and every one prepared to go to bed, when towards nine o’clock knocking was heard at the kitchen door. Armed to the teeth, Mr. Thompson went to it at once.