The cunning old lady was saying what she did not quite believe, having in view an object, and Shane looked at her in surprise. 'If riots take place,' the countess proceeded, 'the commander-in-chief will put them down, if he thinks proper, with the English troops who have come over lately; and he and they will bear the odium. The Irish nobles would be placing themselves in a false position by interfering against their own people with too great alacrity. At all events, they will gain a point by waiting.' 'But, mother, the other lords are heading the squireens. If I hold back they will say I am a coward!' 'Not so, my son. Your proceedings every day would give the lie to that. I grant that if you sat here, or roystered on in Dublin, you might be accused of shuffling, which would not do. But if you went away? Not to England, no! That would not do either. Why not go to Ennishowen, under the pretext that here everything is safe under the paternal rule of the executive, whilst in the vast wild northern district, over which you hold sway, it would be politic for the lord to be amongst his tenants? You would be of local service, and at that distance no one could be sure whether or no your future actions were guided by events.' 'You do not believe that this pack of fools will do any harm?' 'Certainly not, or I would not counsel you to go away. Cannot you see that in ignoble squabbles with the scum it is best to keep clean hands by remaining neutral? They will be put down--of course they will be put down; but, you stupid fellow, we must so manage that you have no hand in it. We will go to Glas-aitch-é. 'Tis long since we were there.' Shane twirled the satin ear of Eblana round his finger absently. This move of his mother's puzzled him. What would his life be away at wild Glas-aitch-é without his boon companions, among boors who had probably never heard of a Hellfire Club? In earlier days he used to be madly fond of field-sports, was still devoted to certain branches of the chase. But suddenly to leave the joys of a gay metropolis to bury himself in a hut on practically a desert island, was no pleasant prospect. And dear Norah, too, must she be left behind? Accustomed as he was to bow to his mother's ascendency in political questions as in the management of the estates, the vision of Norah deploring in dishevelled loneliness the absence of his fascinating self was too much for him. 'I cannot go, mother! It would look like flight,' he said with a show of firmness.