e terrible change that imprisonment had
wrought in his appearance. The next day he set out for Ballybay.

Meanwhile, vast changes seemed about to come over Ireland. The Fenian
conspiracy had been the death-knell of the triumphant cynicism and
corruption that had reigned over the country in the years succeeding the
treason of Crowe. The name of Mr. Butt, as the leader of a new movement,
was beginning to be spoken of. An agitation had been started which
demanded a radical settlement of the land question. Demonstrations were
taking place in almost every county, and the people were united,
enthusiastic, and hopeful. Several of the worst of the landlords had
already been brought to their knees, and there had been a considerable
fall in the value of landed property. The serfs were passing from the
extremity of despair and demoralization into the other extreme of
exultant and sometimes cruel triumph.

Even the town of Ballybay was beginning to be stirred, and the farmers
all around joined the new organization in large numbers.

By a curious coincidence a monster demonstration was announced in
Ballybay for the very day of Mat's arrival.

As Mat passed along the too well remembered scene between Ballybay and
Dublin, he could not help thinking of the time when he had gone over
this road on his first visit to Ireland after his departure for England.
He had then thought that desolation had reached its ultimate point; but
in the intervening period the signs of decay had increased. It appeared
as if for every ruin that had stared him in the face on the former
occasion ten now appeared. For miles and miles he caught sight of not
one house, of no human face; he seemed almost to be travelling through a
city of the dead.

As the newspaper containing tidings of the new movement lay before him,
he leaned back in reflection, and once more thought of the days in which
Crowe figured as the saviour, and then as the betrayer of Ireland. It
had been a rigid article of faith with the Fenian organization that no
confidence was to be placed in constitutional agitations and agitators.
Mat retained in their full fervor the doctrines he had held for years
upon this point; and he turned away from the accounts of the new
movement as from another chapter in national folly and prospective
treason. Looking out on the familiar grey and dull sky, he could see no
hope whatever for the future of his country. Irish life appeared to him
one vast mistake; an