Many hours were also spent in architectural drawings, which interested him greatly. At that time Brighton Station was being rebuilt, and Parnell was intensely interested in getting the "span" of the roof. He spent hours at odd times pacing the station, measuring distances, heights, depth of roof, etc., etc., and in drawing up plans in order that he might build a cattle shed on the same lines at Avondale. These plans he afterwards submitted to a well-known architect for his opinion on them, and they were returned as absolutely correct in every detail. He then reduced the whole thing to scale and had the cattle shed made from these plans at Avondale. I well remember his look of reproach at me when I laughed while reading him a letter from his agent at Avondale the following winter. The agent said that Mrs. Delia Parnell (Parnell's mother) had arrived unexpectedly at Avondale, and, after seeing the new cattle shed, had at once decided to give an entertainment in it. This she had done, having the cattle shifted from their comfortable {101} quarters, the place boarded in, and a temporary floor laid down. Parnell did not see that this expensive and troublesome eviction of his cattle for so frivolous a reason was in the least funny, and was very greatly annoyed at the whole proceeding. He was always most chivalrously kind to his mother, however, and his protest on this occasion was very gentle, though coupled with firm insistence, on the instant restoration of the cattle-house to its tenants. Another of his hobbies was the "assaying" of small pieces of quartz from the stream at Wicklow, and I used to help him for hours at this, keeping his blow-pipe constantly at work, while he, silent and absorbed, manipulated the crucibles. When we went to live at Brighton, after my aunt's death, he had a furnace fitted up in one of the rooms so that he could work on a larger scale. His endeavour to obtain gold from this quartz was rewarded to a certain extent; but the working was, of course, far too laborious and expensive to be profitable otherwise than as a hobby. However, Parnell for five years worked at it in various odd hours till he had extracted sufficient gold to line my wedding ring, even though his hope of getting enough for the whole ring was not fulfilled. When working at these things Parnell was absolutely oblivious to the passing of time, and it was with difficulty that I prevailed upon him to take sufficient exercise, or even to take his meals before they were spoiled by waiting. He would order his horse, "President," to be taken to a certain place about a half-mile from the house, at the hour he wished to ride, and then become so absorbed in the particular hobby of the moment that even I could get nothing from him but an abstracted smile and a gentle {102} "Is that so?" in answer to the intimation that his horse had been waiting some two hours or more for him.