to take care of her. They
tried to bring her home, but she showed a strange kind of obstinacy, and
refused for a long time to move. When she was got to make a stir she
seemed most unwilling to go in the direction of the workhouse, she would
give no reason--for indeed she seemed either unable or unwilling to
speak at all, but with the silent obstinacy of an animal she tried to go
in an opposite direction. At last the two women thought it wisest to
humor her, and let her go where she wished. By this time night had
completely fallen, and in going down a dark boreen she managed to escape
from her companions altogether. They searched everywhere around, and at
last frightened, they went home for their husbands. A party of five
people--the husbands, the son of one of them, and the two women came
along the boreen, guided by the dim light of the farthing dip which is
the only light the Irish farmer has yet been able to use. After a long
search they came to a spot well known to all of them, and then the truth
burst suddenly upon them. One of the women had been at the funeral of
the Widow Cunningham's husband when she was a little girl, and
remembered the spot where he was buried. They all followed her there in
a strange anxiety, and their anticipations proved right. On the grave of
her husband they found the Widow Cunningham, and she was a corpse.

CHAPTER XXI.

DEAD MAN'S ISLAND.

There was one person in Ballybay at least who envied the woman that lay
forever free from life's fitful fever. The day's demonstration in the
town had brought no joy to Mat's heart. He had not yet learned to make
any distinction between the agitators who had broken his own life and
murdered the hopes of his country, and the very different class of men
who had brought new life and hope to the Irish nation. The whole
business of the meeting to him, therefore, appeared nothing but gabble,
treason, and folly. He spent his hours, after a scornful look or two at
the preparations for the speeches of the day, in wandering through the
fields and streets which he had known in boyhood, and appeared to have
left so very, very long ago. Every sight deepened his depression. He
thought of the first day he had spent in the town long ago, when he
visited Ballybay for the first time after years of absence. Then he
thought that he had exhausted the possibilities of grief over the waste
of a nation's life; but he now found that there were deeper depths and
larg