About this time (it was in 1883) Mr. (afterwards Sir) Howard Vincent, head of the Detective Department of Scotland Yard, sent a note to the House of Commons asking Parnell to see him for a few minutes, as he had an important communication to make to him. Parnell was just going to speak, so he brought me the note up to the Ladies' Gallery, and, hastily putting it into my hand, said: "See to this for me."
It was a morning sitting, and I hurried off to Scotland Yard hoping to get back in time to hear Parnell speak, and yet anxious to hear what the note meant. I was shown into Sir Howard Vincent's private room directly I arrived, and he expressed great pleasure, as well as great surprise, at seeing me. I showed him his note to Parnell, and asked him to what it referred. He answered that the "officials" all considered the matter serious, and that the Government were prepared to give Mr. Parnell protection if he wished it.
I told him that Mr. Parnell would, I was sure, not like that at all, and, after a long conversation of no particular definiteness, Sir Howard said: "I do not think you believe in this particular threat against Mr. Parnell, do you, Mrs. O'Shea?"
I replied: "Well, it does seem rather like a hoax to me. Would you mind letting me see the 'letter of warning'?" He laughed and said: "Not at all, but I've torn it up and flung it into the waste-paper basket."
I promptly picked up the basket in question and turned it over on his table, saying: "Let us piece it together." He pretended to help me for a few moments, as I neatly put together various uninteresting documents, and then, with a deprecating smile, swept them all together, saying: "It is your game, Mrs. O'Shea; you are too clever. Why didn't you send Mr. Parnell round?" and we parted with laughing expressions of goodwill and amusement on his part that we had not been taken in.
The Government, of course, were bent on forcing "police protection" on Parnell as a convenience to themselves and a means of ascertaining the extent of his influence over the Invincibles. The Government did not trust Parnell, and they wished to frighten him into care of himself and thus weaken the trust of the Irish in him.
One evening in 1882 or 1883, when Parnell and I were waiting at Brighton station to catch the train to London, we noticed that there was much crowding round the book-stall placards and much excitement among buyers of newspapers. Parnell did not wish to be recognized, as he was supposed at that time to be in Ireland; but, hearing Gladstone's name mentioned by a passer-by, our curiosity got the better of our caution and we went to get a paper. Parnell, being so tall a man, could see over the heads of the crowd, and, reading the placard, turned back without getting a paper to tell me that the excitement was over the report of "the assassination of Mr. Parnell." I then asked him to get into the train so that we should run no risk of his being known, and managed to get through the crowd to buy a paper myself. How the report arose we never knew, but at that time, when every post brought Parnell some threat of violence and my nerves were jarred and tense with daily fear for him, it took all my fortitude to answer his smile and joke at the unfounded report which left me sick and shaken.
[[1]] Dillon and Davitt.