‘It appears that Mr. Cattley’s brother is an engineer who has to do with machinery,’ grandfather said. ‘I don’t know if that is the same thing as a lighthouse man. You will have to go to the foundry and learn how everything is made. It is not surveying and that sort of thing, so far as I can hear. You will have to put your shoulder to the wheel, they tell me, and work with your own hands: but I suppose you will not mind that, John.’
‘And where is the foundry?’ asked grandmamma, from the sofa. ‘I hope it is not too far away.’
‘Well, it is not perhaps the place I should have chosen; but what does it matter? one place is very like another. Anything that could harm him would be just as likely to come to him in any other place. It’s in Liverpool, my dear.’
‘In Liverpool——’ Mrs. Sandford raised herself so quickly and energetically for her weak condition that she looked as if she were about to spring from the sofa. ‘John Sandford,’ she said, ‘you will never let the boy go there.’
‘It is not what I should have wished,’ said the old gentleman; ‘in short, it is the last place I should have chosen. But I did not think of that soon enough, and, after Mr. Cattley has been so kind as to make all the inquiries—— What can it matter, after all? That or any other place. It will be just the same. I can’t think that there is any more danger there than anywhere else. And, things have gone so far, I don’t see how we can draw back.’
‘Oh, John Sandford!’ cried his wife, ‘it is not possible. I can never, never consent. What! After all we have suffered, and all the sacrifices we have made, to send him back there!’
‘I know, I know,’ said the old gentleman, with a deprecatory wave of his hands. ‘It is all true; but still, what can we do? A long time has passed, and he is going back without any—— No, I know very well what you would say: but if you will look at it reasonably——’
‘How can I look at it reasonably? And do you think Emily will be reasonable? She will never consent, and neither will I.’
‘But, my dear, my dear!’ he said, ‘it is all settled, and how can I go back?’
John had listened to this conversation with a surprise which gradually grew into something like indignation.