"But then—I supposed you to be but a fellow guest?" "Ah, no" he answered, he in that cold, unshaken voice, "I
have but come home."—(THE BAGMAN) HONORA SHEE.
 
 
Whenever I went to town, or elsewhere, I always returned at night to see that my children were all right and to be ready to go to my aunt as usual every morning. One day, on my return from a drive with my aunt, I found that my old nurse Lucy, who still lived with me, was very ill, having had a stroke of paralysis while I was away. She lingered only a couple of days before she died and left a great void in my heart. My children missed their admiring old confidante sadly. She had always been devoted to me as the youngest of her "own babies," as she called my mother's children, and had shared in all my fortunes and misfortunes since I returned from Spain. She was always very proud, and so fearful of becoming a burden to anyone, that she rented a room in her sister's house so that she should feel independent. So often, when "times were bad" with us, she would press some of her savings into my hand and say that "The Captain must want a little change, Dearie, going about as he does!"
 
In her earlier life she had had her romance, and had spent some years in saving up to marry her "sweetheart," as she called him; but shortly before the wedding her father's business failed, and she immediately gave him {66} all her little nest-egg, with the result that her lover refused to marry her. So then, at the great age of ninety, after her blameless life had been passed since the age of sixteen in unselfish devotion to us all, we laid her to rest by the side of my father and mother at Cressing, Willie taking her down to Essex and attending the funeral.
 
As she lay dying I got this note from Mr. Parnell:—
 
DUBLIN,
    September 22, 1880.
MY DEAR MRS. O'SHEA,—I cannot keep myself away from you any longer, so shall leave to-night for London.
 
Please wire me to 16, Keppel Street, Russell Square, if I may hope to see you to-morrow and where, after 4 p.m.—Yours always, C. S. P.
 
 
 
Owing to the piteous clinging to my fingers of my old Lucy I was unable to go to London even for an hour to meet Mr. Parnell, so I telegraphed to that effect, and received the following letter:—
 
EUSTON STATION,
    Friday evening, September 24, 1880.
MY DEAR MRS. O'SHEA,—On arriving at Keppel Street yesterday I found that your wire had just arrived, and that the boy refused to leave it as I was not stopping there. Going at once to the district postal office I asked for and received the wire, and to-day went to London Bridge Station at 12.15.
 
The train from Eltham had just left, so I came on to Charing Cross and sent a note by messenger to you at Thomas's, with directions to bring it back if you were not there, which turned out to be the case. I am very much troubled at not having seen you, especially as I must return to Ireland to-night—I came on purpose for you, and had no other business. I think it possible, on reflection, that the telegraph people may have wired you that they were unable to deliver your message, and, if so, must reproach myself for not having written you last night.—Your very disappointed C. S. P.
 
 
 
{67}
From Dublin he wrote me:
 
Saturday morning, September 25, 1880.
MY DEAR MRS. O'SHEA,—In my hurried note to you last night I had not time to sympathize with you in this troublesome time you have been going through recently; how I wish it might have been possible for me to have seen you even for a few minutes to tell you how very much I feel any trouble which comes to you.
 
I am just starting for New Ross, where there is a meeting to-morrow.
 
If you can spare time to write me to Avondale, the letters will reach me in due course.—Yours always, C. S. P.
 
 
 
September 29, 1880.
MY DEAR MRS. O'SHEA,—I have received your wire, but not the letter which you say you were writing me to Dublin for Monday.
 
I suppose then you may have sent it to Rathdrum instead, whither I am going this evening, and that I may soon have the happiness of reading a few words written by you.
 
I am due at Cork on Sunday, after which I propose to visit London again, and renew my attempt to gain a glimpse of you. Shall probably arrive there on Tuesday if I hear from you in the meanwhile that you will see me.
 
On Friday evening I shall be at Morrison's on my way to Kilkenny for Saturday, and shall be intensely delighted to have a wire from you to meet me there.—Yours always, CHAS. S. PARNELL.
 
 
 
Meanwhile Willie was in communication with Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Tintern (one of the Liberal agents) and others, in reference to a meeting held by him.
 
Mr. Tintern wrote from Tenby commenting with satisfaction on the report of Willie's successful meeting, on Willie's kind mention of the Government, and on the good the meeting must do by promoting orderly progress and better feeling between one class and another. But he {68} expressed surprise that Willie should think the Government had not treated him and West Clare well. He at least...! Mr. Gladstone wrote from Downing Street on the 21st September about the meeting in much the same terms. He expressed himself as gratified to think that the important local proceedings with regard to the land question showed the union of people and pastors against the extremists.
 
Life at Eltham went on in the same routine. My aunt was well, and would sit for long hours at the south door of her house—looking away up "King John's Chase"—the ruins of King John's Palace were at Eltham, and my aunt's park and grounds were part of the ancient Royal demesne. In these summer evenings she loved to sit at the top of the broad flight of shallow steps with me, and tell my little girls stories of her life of long ago.
 
Sometimes her favourite Dr. Bader would bring his zither down from London and play to us; or my aunt and I would sit in the great tapestry room with all of the seven windows open, listening to the song of the ?olian harp as the soft breeze touched its strings and died away in harmony through the evening stillness.
 
Sometimes, too, she would sing in her soft, gentle old voice the songs of her youth, to the accompaniment of her guitar. "We met, 'twas in a crowd," was a favourite old song of hers, half forgotten since she used to sing it to the music of her spinet seventy years before, but Dr. Bader found the words in an old book, and the dear old lady crooned it sentimentally to me as we sat waiting for the hooting of the owls which signalled to her maid the time for shutting her lady's windows.
 
And I was conscious of sudden gusts of unrest and revolt against these leisured, peaceful days where the {69} chiming of the great clock in the hall was the only indication of the flight of time, and the outside world of another age called to me with the manifold interests into which I had been so suddenly plunged with the power to help in the making and marring of a destiny.
 
In the autumn of 1880 Mr. Parnell came to stay with us at Eltham, only going to Dublin as occasion required. Willie had invited him to come, and I got in some flowers in pots and palms to make my drawing-room look pretty for him.
 
Mr. Parnell, who was in very bad health at that time, a few days later complained of sore throat, and looked, as I thought, mournfully at my indoor garden, which I industriously watered every day. It then dawned upon me that he was accusing this of giving him sore throat, and I taxed him with it. He evidently feared to vex me, but admitted that he did think it was so, and "wouldn't it do if they were not watered so often?" He was childishly touched when I at once had them all removed, and he sank happily on to the sofa, saying that "plants were such damp things!"
 
His throat became no better, and he looked so terribly ill when—as he often did now—he fell asleep from sheer weakness on the sofa before the fire, that I became very uneasy about him. Once, on awaking from one of these sleeps of exhaustion, he told me abruptly that he believed it was the green in the carpet that gave him sore throat. There and then we cut a bit out, and sent it to London to be analysed, but without result. It was quite a harmless carpet.
 
During this time I nursed him assiduously, making him take nourishment at regular intervals, seeing that these day-sleeps of his were not disturbed, and forcing {70} him to take fresh air in long drives through the country around us. At length I had the satisfaction of seeing his strength gradually return sufficiently to enable him to take the exercise that finished the process of this building-up, and he became stronger than he had been for some years. I do not think anyone but we who saw him then at Eltham, without the mask of reserve he always presented to the outside world, had any idea of how near death's door his exertions on behalf of the famine-stricken peasants of Ireland had brought him.
 
Once in that autumn, after he came to us, I took him for a long drive in an open carriage through the hop-growing district of Kent. I had not thought of the fact that hundreds of the poorest of the Irish came over for the hop-picking, and might recognize him.
 
After driving over Chislehurst Common and round by the lovely Grays, we came right into a crowd of the Irish "hoppers"—men, women, and children. In a moment there was a wild surge towards the carriage, with cries of "The Chief! The Chief!" and "Parnell! Parnell! Parnell!" The coachman jerked the horses on to their haunches for fear of knocking down the enthusiastic men and women who were crowding up—trying to kiss Parnell's hand, and calling for "a few words."
 
He lifted his cap with that grave, aloof smile of his, and said no, he was not well enough to make the smallest of speeches, but he was glad to see them, and would talk to them when they went home to Ireland. Then, bidding them to "mind the little ones," who were scrambling about the horses' legs, to the manifest anxiety of the coachman, he waved them away, and we drove off amid fervent "God keep your honours!" and cheers.
 
These Irish hop-pickers were so inured to privation {71} in their own country that they were very popular among the Kentish hop-farmers, as they did not grumble so much as did the English pickers at the scandalously inefficient accommodation provided for them.
 
Often before Parnell became really strong I used to watch for hours beside him as he slept before the drawing-room fire, till I had to rouse him in time to go to the House. Once, when he was moving restlessly, I heard him murmur in his sleep, as I pulled the light rug better over him: "Steer carefully out of the harbour—there are breakers ahead."
 
He now had all the parcels and letters he received sent on to me, so that I might open them and give him only those it was necessary ............