Parnell, after sending the boy for change, had temporarily forgotten the matter, and no explanation could convince him that it was the obvious thing that the boy should be "arrested" on trying to change so large a note. "Jimmie's a nuisance, but anyone can see that he is honest," was his conclusion.
On one of our excursions, ostensibly to look for a house, but really as much as anything for the purpose of getting away for a few hours to the sea, we went to Herne Bay. This was a charming and lonely little place then; a cluster of houses set in green fields and a fresh sea dashing over the little pier. It was always on days when the wind was high that the longing for the sea came over us, and thus we generally found the sea responding to our mood.
At this little village of Herne Bay the house we saw was unsuitable, but the day is a memory of salt wind and rough waves, followed by a picnic dinner at the little inn, where Parnell ordered a fowl to be roasted, and was momentarily saddened by my refusal to eat that murdered bird, which had been so pleasantly finding its own dinner when he gave the order.
CHAPTER XXIV
LONDON REMEMBRANCES
"My true love hath my heart and I have his."
—SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.
Once when Parnell had to go to Ireland by the morning mail, after a late sitting of the House, I went up to the St. Pancras Hotel, where he had a room that night, and made the waiter bring up a tray into the bedroom, with a cold bird, some tomatoes and materials for salad dressing, adding a bottle of still Moselle (Parnell always drank still Moselle by his doctor's, Sir Henry Thompson's, orders, and no other wine). I knew he would be rushed to catch the train when he returned in the early morning, and that he would miss the little meal I always had ready for him, and this missing a meal was very bad for him.
When I had prepared the supper table to my liking I sat down by the open window and watched the flare of light in the sky and the wide panoramic view of mean streets and wide spaces I had from this window, of one of the rooms highest up in this high building; and the shrieks and oaths of men and women came up to me as they quarrelled, and the drunken brawls of some past semblance of humanity floated up to me till dawn brought peace to the city, as these poor dregs of life slunk back to their dens to seek the oblivion of sleep. I shall never forget the sights and sounds of that night, for never before had the horror of a great city's streets at night been so forcibly brought before me.