Mary stood beside the bed tearless.
"Doesn't Mary bear up well?" said Mat in surprise to her blubbering father.
"Mary doesn't cry," said her father; "she frets," and in these words Mat thought the whole character of the girl was summed up.
Mrs. Flaherty died on Thursday; the polling was on the following day. Mat was still under the impression of the dark and painful scene when the new excitement came. He hoped against hope to the last, went about the town like one insane, and spoke in his passion of country even to O'Flynn, the pawn-broker, and of honor to Mat Fleming, and then waited at the closing hour to hear the result. The result was:—
| Crowe | 125 |
| Ponsonby | 112 |
Mat turned pale, and almost fell, his head swam, his heart seemed for a moment to have stopped. He would not yet acknowledge it in so many words; but the sentence still kept ringing in his ears, "Thy doom is sealed, thy doom is sealed."
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE STORY OF BETTY CUNNINGHAM.
The disaster which swept over all Ireland through the final success of the treachery of Crowe raged soon after in Ballybay. The town had been reduced by successive misfortunes to a condition so abject that one calamity was sufficient to completely submerge the greater portion of its inhabitants. Mr. Anthony Cosgrave, J. P., signalized the event by driving out the few tenants who still remained on the properties he had bought. He turned all his land into pasture, for this was the prosperous era of the graziers, and cattle were rapidly transformed into gold. Other landlords pursued similar courses, and within a couple of years, ten thousand people had been swept from the neighborhood around.
The calamity reached down to the very lowest stratum, and touched depths so profound as the fortunes of the widow Cunningham and her daughter Betty.