'Is he not?' grunted the giant, shortly. 'It's surprised I'd be if he could not tell us as much about a green bough in England's crown as is known to you or I.' Doreen's eyes were on her cousin. Her face wore its usual serene look. The enormity of the proceeding did not seem so great to her as it did to him. He did not take into consideration the sublime manner in which women look straight to a goal, without marking the mud which may have to be crossed to reach it. A thought shot through his brain, flooding it with joy. If she could contemplate such a trick being played upon the earl, she could not care about him. That was a rare thing to know. And why should it not be played on him? The brothers were so estranged, that the younger one felt no call to interfere in such a matter on behalf of the elder. It was impossible that he should have lived so long on terms of familiarity with the disaffected without being unconsciously tainted to at least a small extent with their oft-repeated complaints. Not that he was prepared to admit that these modern grievances were well-founded. No doubt it had been very improper--all those years ago--for a Protestant invader to seize, _vi et armis_, the territory of a Catholic nation--to eject the sons of the soil by force, in favour of themselves and their heirs. But really it was too late now to remedy that misfortune. The English were to all seeming a happy and contented people, who had long since given up groaning over the Norman invasion and the freebooting proceedings of William the Conqueror. It was merely a matter of time. Ireland must accept the past, and pick out the thorns from the bed on which she lay as well as she could. Thus was Terence, in his idle good-humoured way, accustomed to argue when his personal friends gnashed their teeth at the Sassanagh. But these new theories that were beginning to be broached--even by Mr. Curran himself--charging the executive with motives which, if they in truth existed, were _lèse-patrie_ of the most heinous kind, caused even his careless junior to pause and think. And then he consoled himself with considering that high-principled King George could not be Blunderbore--that my Lord Clare was not a Feefofum. Yet there was no doubt that my Lord Clare was unduly harsh--that the low-bred squireens were apt to treat the common folk cruelly to curry favour with the Castle. He did not pause to ask himself why cruelty to common folk should be pleasing in the Castle's eye. These yeomanry corps were likely to be productive of much evil. Terence had said as much to his mother but now. It was possible that Shane, in his overbearing pride of birth and fierce tendency to fire-eating, might become a terrible flail if he accepted the task of organising a regiment--indeed from his nature he was sure to do so. It would be a whimsical revenge for the people that he should be unconsciously guarding their weapons for them.