CHAPTER XXV
THE PARNELL COMMISSION
"For none on earth so lone as he
Whose way of thought is high and free,
Beyond the mist, beyond the cloud,
Beyond the clamour of the crowd."
I had long since had a high paling put round my garden to screen it from the inquisitive eyes of persons who had, until this was done, the impertinence to lean over the short stone wall and railings to watch Parnell as he went in and out. This new paling was seven feet high. On the carriage gates there was bronze ornamental work, thick and heavy. Once this was cut through by someone unknown and fell, the next time the gate was opened, upon the head of the groom, as he stooped to unbolt it.
This little "accident" was no doubt intended for Mr. Parnell's or for my benefit, and the fact that the young man's arm was pushed against the gate, above his head, as he stooped to ease the bolt, doubtless saved him from a cracked skull. As it was, he was badly bruised and cut, some fifty pounds of bronze work falling partly upon him. After this he examined the work on the other gate, and, finding that this also had been cut through, with the help of the gardener lifted it off before further damage was done. This pointless and malignant spite might easily have had far more serious consequences, since my children were going out by these gates driving their ponies, and it was quite by chance that they had called the groom to open the gates for them, for one or other of them generally played at being the "footman" on these occasions. The police could not trace the perpetrators of the little pleasantry.
I then made a beautiful, thick rose-hedge at one side of this garden, and the roses grew and flourished to such an extent that it proved an effectual screen from the too-pressing attention of persons, who had not, I suppose, very many interests of their own.
On the morning that the (so-called) Parnell letters appeared in the Times (March 7, 1887), they were cut out and pasted on the gate by a person or persons unknown; and here also the perspicacity of our local police failed to find the merrymaker.
On that day I did not give Parnell the Times opened as usual for his glance over the political reports while he breakfasted. He asked for it, but I wanted him to finish his breakfast first, and replied: "The Times is unusually stodgy; do eat your breakfast first."
He said he must finish a bit of assaying he had left over-night before going to London, and would not have time for papers afterwards, so I told him of the letters, and propped the Times against the teapot as usual.
He read the whole thing; meditatively buttering and eating his toast the while. I supplied him with marmalade, and turned over the folded paper for him so that he could read more easily.