The days dragged on thus but slowly. Madam Gillin was a strange mixture of bravery and pusillanimity. As we have seen, she stood in terror of a particular gentleman, because he had discovered that she took her Protestant child to mass, and had threatened to expose the awful secret. Such a matter would disturb no one at the present day; but at that time it was a heinous sin, which would have pointed the sinner out for some practical joking on the part of the Protestant squireens. At the same time she fearlessly harboured one who was a marked man, upon whose head shortly a price might be set, who might drag her with him to ruin, if the worst came to the worst; and all because she had sworn an oath once to a dying paramour, and had watched, with anger mingled with sorrow, the career of the child she had promised to protect. Knowing Ireland's wrongs better than he did, and learning from hearsay how proud-stomached a boy he was, she had always dreaded that which actually came to pass. She and Curran agreed that it would be deplorable if he joined the popular party; but as both secretly leaned in that direction, they could not discountenance him for having the courage to maintain, in face of danger, what they felt to be the rightful cause. For all their sakes, however, she acted with feminine tact. She kept him a close prisoner in a garret while it was day, sitting alone herself in the garden during fine weather, where all who passed along the high-road might perceive a strange figure they were little likely to forget. At night she took him out under personal escort to take the air, bidding Phil march forty yards in front and whistle at the first hint of danger, while Norah fulfilled the same office behind; Jug meanwhile being strictly enjoined to allow no strange foot to cross the threshold, under any pretence whatever. In the course of these walks they wandered by the shore, coming quite accidentally, sometimes, upon a group of fishermen, who bowed to the young man with respect, and conversed with him in long and earnest whispers. It transpired by-and-by that some of the ubiquitous informers were beginning to turn their attention to the rage for fishing which seemed to have arisen about Strogue Point. Then Madam Gillin forbade even the solace of these nocturnal wanderings.