The Way Home Read Online Free PDF

Mother, her first shock over and her eyes dried, fell into a reminiscent mood.
    "Dear oh deary me! Old Mr. B. laid on the shelf! Why, it seems only like the other day I saw him for the first time . . . when Johnny was born. Yet it must be nigh on five-and-forty years; Johnny will be forty-five come March. In walks Mr. B. -- I'd never needed a doctor till then -- and says to me -- me, poor young ignorant thing thankful to have escaped with my life -- in he comes: 'Here's a fine fish we've landed to-day, madam! Here's a new recruit for the Grenadier Guards! Twelve pounds if an ounce, and a leg like a three-year-old!' I up on my elbow to see, and he quite gruffly: 'Lie down you villainous young mother, you! Do you want to make an orphan of the brat?' He had always to have his joke had Mr. B. and we were good friends from that day. One after another he brought the whole batch of you into the world. -- Deary me, I shall miss him. Many and many's the time he's stepped over the railing with his weekly news-sheet: 'Here's a murder case to make you ladies' blood run cold,' he would say. Or: 'Another great nugget found on the goldfields!' -- for he knew the ties I had with the colony. And the last sound I used to hear at night was him knocking out his pipe on the chimney-piece. It was such a comfort to me -- after your father went and the boys scattered -- to know we'd a man so close. Especially in '59, when those dreadful burglaries took place."
    "Now, mother, give over trying to make yourself engaging," was Lisby's comment. "You know the truth is, no one troubled less about the burglars than you. Before my mother went to bed she would lay out all the silver and plate and her rings and brooches, in neat piles on the table, so as to save the robbers trouble should they come."
    "So as to save my own skin, you saucy girl! -- Well, well! . . . what's past is past. To be sure it wouldn't have done for him to go on doctoring till he lost his memory, and perhaps mixed his drugs and poisoned us all."
    "It would not indeed. And for the rest, my dear mother, I tell you what: Mary and I will take up our abode next door and look after you," said Mahony.
    At the moment, the words passed as the jest they were meant for. But they sowed their seed. Mahony ate his toast and drained his cup with an absent air; and as soon as breakfast was over made Mary a private sign to follow him upstairs. There, while she sat on the edge of the bed, he fidgeted about the room, fingering objects and laying them down again in a manner that told of a strong inner excitement.
    "I spoke without reflection but, upon my soul, it does look rather like the finger of Providence. An opening to crop up in this way at my very elbow! . . . one that's not to be despised either, if report speaks true. Really, wife, I don't know what to think. It has quite unsettled me. Here have I been expecting to have to travel the country, visiting this place and that, answering advertisements that lead to nothing, or myself advertising and receiving no replies -- all so much nerve and shoe wear -- and a dreary business at best. You see, my dear, what I need first of all is English experience. I mean" -- he made an airy gesture -- "I must be able to say, when I find the perfectly suitable position I'm looking for: 'I've been practising in such and such a place for so and so many years, and have had a first-class connection there.' -- You notice, I hope, I have no intention -- should I take the chance offered me, that is, and pop in here -- of the making it a permanency. It remains my ambition to live in the country. But if only half what they say of old Brocklebank's affairs is to be believed, a few years here wouldn't hurt me. There are pots of money to be made in these manufacturing towns, once a practice is set going -- and this has existed for over half a century. Besides, it might even improve under my hands . . . why not, indeed? Such a Methuselah must have been entirely out of date in