'I am. I am. Oh, father, I have longed for you by day, and dreamed about you by night, ever since I saw that other boys had fathers, and I had none. Years and years of my life—I hardly know how many—have been spent in searching for you. And now I have found you!'
The great tall man, in the prime of life and strength, laid his big head down on the old man's knee, as if he had been a little child. His father said nothing, but laid his hand on the head. For some moments the two remained thus, motionless and silent. Andrew was the first to speak. And his words were the voice of the spirit that striveth with man.
'What am I to do, Robert?'
No other words, not even those of passionate sorrow, or overflowing affection, could have been half so precious in the ears of Robert. When a man once asks what he is to do, there is hope for him. Robert answered instantly,
'You must come home to your mother.'
'My mother!' Andrew exclaimed. 'You don't mean to say she's alive?'
'I heard from her yesterday—in her own hand, too,' said Robert.
'I daren't. I daren't,' murmured Andrew.
'You must, father,' returned Robert. 'It is a long way, but I will make the journey easy for you. She knows I have found you. She is waiting and longing for you. She has hardly thought of anything but you ever since she lost you. She is only waiting to see you, and then she will go home, she says. I wrote to her and said, “Grannie, I have found your Andrew.” And she wrote back to me and said, “God be praised. I shall die in peace.”'
A silence followed.