Shortly before this, the Widow Cunningham had received the news that her poor boy had been killed in a colliery accident in Pennsylvania. This stopped the allowance which he used to send her out of his own scant wages. The destruction of her daughter now came as the last blow that broke her long-enduring spirit. There had been a time when she would have died rather than have gone into the workhouse, but she had nothing left to live for now, and she became a pauper. The Irish workhouse soon kills what little spirit successive misfortunes have left in its occupants before their entrance, and in a few years there was nothing left of the once proud, high-spirited and splendid woman, whom we knew in the early days of this history. Meantime, the fate of the girl had been the final influence in deciding the fate of another person. Mat Blake had fluctuated for a long time before he could make up his mind to join the revolutionary party; but on the very evening of the day on which he had seen Betty in the streets of Ballybay he made no further resistance, and that night was sworn in as a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. It is not my purpose in this story to enter at length into his adventures in his new and perilous enterprise. He had not been long in the ranks when he was recognized by Mr. James Stephens as one of the most promising members of the conspiracy, and he was chosen to do important and serious work. The funds of the organization were nearly always at the lowest ebb, and during this period of his life Mat had to pass through privations that could only be endured by a man of passionate purpose and unselfish aims. Many and many a time he had not the money wherewith to buy a railway ticket. His clothes were often ragged, and he frequently had to walk twenty miles in a day in shoes that were almost soleless. The arrangement usually was for the members of one circle to supply him with the money that would take him to the next town; and though he saw many instances of abject cowardice and hideous selfishness at this period--especially when the suspension of the _Habeas Corpus_ Act left the liberty, and to some extent, the life of every man at the disposal of the police. He also witnessed many proofs of heroic courage and noble devotion.