I went to the Home Office and saw Mr. Jenkinson on the subject. He asked me to send O'Brien down to him and he would settle matters, adding that he had reason for believing that the story of threats from another scoundrel was true.
I saw O'Brien and told him to call on Mr. Jenkinson.
He answered that he would go, but he never did, and Mr. Jenkinson subsequently told me that the Land League scented he was going to prove a troublesome informer, so they practically outbid the Government by paying O'Brien a large sum, which was handed to him on the steamer as it was starting for America.
From that time, until I have been recalling the incidents of the explosion for this book, I have never given a thought to the affair and not mentioned it half a dozen times in the twenty years that have elapsed.
CHAPTER XXI
MORE ATROCITIES AND LAND CRIMES
I brought my family back to Kerry in the following summer, and after I had rebuilt Edenburn I lived there until I gave it to my elder son, who has it to this day and resides there in peace.
Matters were very different to that state of idyllic simplicity in the critical times on which I am still dwelling.
One night, while in London, I was at the House of Commons, and the London correspondent of the Freeman, being presumably extremely short of what he would term 'copy,' he proceeded to make observations about me after this fashion:—