A man from the neighbourhood subsequently wrote to me from London that he could tell me who perpetrated the Edenburn outrage. I told him to call on me at the Union Club, of which I was then a member, and informed him--his name was O'Brien--I would arrange with the Home Office, in the event of his information being valuable, that he should get a reward. He replied that his life was in danger in London from another Fenian. 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:-- 'Over here Mr. Hussey is something of a fish out of water. It would be hazardous to say that if he was to begin his career as an agent again he would eschew the system that has made him famous, but his present frame of mind is unquestionably one of doubt as to whether, after all, the game was worth the candle.' That young man will go far as a writer of fiction. I received, among more pleasant welcomes on my return to my native land, the following delightful blast of vituperation from the _Irish Citizen_, and beg to tender the unknown author my profound thanks for the diversion his ink-slinging afforded me:--