“If that’s nonsense,” returned the fisherman, “you’ll never hear me talk sense again as long as I live. But how about mother, Isa? Is she well!”
“Quite well. I have just left her puzzling herself over a letter from abroad that’s so ill-written that it would bother a schoolmaster to read it. I tried to read it, but couldn’t. You’re a good scholar, Fred, so you have come just in time to help her. But won’t she be surprised to see you!”
Thus conversing, and walking rather slowly, the pair made their way to the attic of Mrs Martin, where the unexpected sight of her son threw the patient woman into a great flutter of surprise and pleasure. We use the word “patient” advisedly, for Mrs Martin was one of those wholesome-minded creatures who, having to battle vigorously for the bare necessaries of life in the face of many adverse circumstances, carry on the war with a degree of hearty, sweet-tempered resolution which might put to shame many who are better off in every way. Mrs Martin was a widow and a washerwoman, and had a ne’er-do-well brother, a fisherman, who frequently “sponged” upon her. She also had a mother to support and attend upon, as well as a “bad leg” to endure. True, the attendance on her mother was to the good woman a source of great joy. It constituted one of the few sunbeams of her existence, but it was not on that account the less costly, for the old woman could do nothing whatever to increase the income of the widow’s household—she could not, indeed, move a step without assistance. Her sole occupation was to sit in the attic window and gaze over the sands upon the sea, smiling hopefully, yet with a touch of sadness in the smile; mouthing her toothless gums, and muttering now and then as if to herself, “He’ll come soon now.” Her usual attitude was that of one who listens expectantly.
Thirty years before Granny Martin had stood at the same attic window, an elderly woman even then, looking out upon the raging sea, and muttering anxiously the same words, “He’ll come soon now.” But her husband never came. He was lost at sea. As years flew by, and time as well as grief weakened her mind, the old woman seemed to forget the flight of time, and spent the greater part of every day in the attic window, evidently on the look-out for some one who was to come “soon.” When at last she was unable to walk alone, and had to be half carried to her seat in the attic window by her strong and loving daughter, the sadness seemed to pass away, and her cheery spirit revived under the impression, apparently, that the coming could not be delayed much longer. To every one Granny was condescendingly kind, especially to her grandchild Fred, of whom she was very fond.
Only at intervals was the old woman’s cheerfulness disturbed, and that was during the occasional visits of her ne’er-do-well son Dick, for he was generally drunk or “half-seas-over” when he came. Granny never mentioned his name when he was absent, and for a long time Mrs Martin supposed that she tried to forget him, but her opinion changed on this point one night when she overheard her mother praying with intense earnestness and in affectionate terms that her dear Dick might yet be saved. Still, however much or frequently Granny’s thoughts might at any time be distracted from their main channel, they invariably returned thereto with the cheerful assurance that “he would soon come now.”
“You’re ill, my boy,” said Mrs Martin, after the first greetings were over.
“Right you are, mother,” said the worn-out man, sitting down with a weary sigh. “I’ve done my best to fight it down, but it won’t do.”
“You must have the doctor, Fred.”
“I’ve had the doctor already, mother. I parted with Isa Wentworth at the bottom o’ the stair, an’ she will do me more good than dozens o’ doctors or gallons o’ physic.”
But Fred was wrong.