st sympathy with National
movements was rigorously excluded from the box, and Mat was tried by
twelve men, of whom nine were Orangemen and the other three belonged to
that Catholic-Whig _bourgeoisie_ against which he had always waged
unsparing war. Anthony Cosgrave was the foreman. Mat was convicted, and
sentenced to seven years' penal servitude.

The sufferings he underwent during this period I will not attempt to
describe. After a very short stay in Ireland he was transferred to
Portland, and there the English warders exhausted upon him all the
insolence and cruelty of ignorant and triumphant enemies. One suffering,
however, was in his case somewhat mitigated. He had not a large
appetite, and the prison food, though coarse, was sufficient for his
wants. With the generosity which characterized him, he was even ready to
divide his food with those whose appetites were more exacting. Among his
companions were two men, tall, robust, red-haired, who belonged to a
stock of Southern farmers, and who were possessed of the gigantic
strength, the huge frame, and the sound digestion of Cork ploughmen.
Every day these hapless creatures complained of hunger and of cold, and
Mat and Charles Reilly, another member of the _Irish People_ staff,
sometimes found a sombre pleasure in finding and gathering snails for
them. Whenever either of them brought a snail to Meehan or to Sheil the
famished men would swallow it eagerly, without even stopping to take off
the shell. Meehan is now a prominent member of the Dynamite Party in New
York. Sheil became insane shortly after his release, and threw himself
into the Liffey.

One day, after four years' imprisonment, the Governor called Mat into
his room and told him that he was free. He was transferred to Milbank,
then he was supplied with a suit of clothes several times too large for
him, and he went out and by the Thames, and gazed on that noble stream
with the eyes of a free man.

He wandered aimlessly and listlessly along, unable yet to appreciate the
full joy of his restoration to liberty. As he was passing over
Westminster Bridge he was suddenly stopped by a man whom he had known in
the ranks of the organization, and whom the fortune of war had not swept
into gaol with the rest. The stranger looked at Mat for a few moments;
gazed on the hollow eyes, the pale cheeks, and the worn frame, and,
unable to restrain his emotions, burst into tears. This was the first
indication Mat received of th