Chapter Ten.
Return Home.
Six months after our “gam” with the Yankees Tom Lokins and I found ourselves seated once more in the little garret beside my dear old mother.
“Deary me, Robert, how changed ye are!”
“Changed, mother! I should think so! If you’d gone through all that I’ve done and seen since we last sat together in this room you’d be changed too.”
“And have ye really seen the whales, my boy?” continued my mother, stroking my face with her old hand.
“Seen them? ay, and killed them too—many of them.”
“You’ve been in danger, my son,” said my mother earnestly, “but God has preserved you safe through it all.”
“Ay, mother, He has preserved my life in the midst of many dangers,” said I, “for which I am most thankful.”
There was a short silence after this, during which my mother and I gazed earnestly at each other, and Tom Lokins smoked his pipe and stared at the fire.