“Dame, do you remember the name of Jack Johnson on board the ship which foundered with so many on board?” asked Tom.
“Ay, that I do. He was one who took a great fancy to my precious boy,” answered Moggy, gazing earnestly at Tom.
“It is strange, mother, but such was the name of a kind seaman who for many years acted as a second father to me; and still stranger, that he always called me Tom Holman,” exclaimed Tom, as he sat himself down on the stool at her feet, and drawing a tin case from his pocket, took from it a variety of small articles, which he placed in her lap.
She gazed at them with a fixed, earnest look for some moments, and then, stretching out her arms, she exclaimed, “Come to me, my son, my boy—long lost, now found! I cried unto the Lord, and He heard me out of my deep distress. You bear your father’s name, you have your father’s looks. Wonderful are the ways of the Lord. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. The Lord hath restored me tenfold into my bosom. Blessed be the Name of the Lord!”
Tom threw his arms round the old woman, and sobbed like a child.
“Mother, mother, I have found you, I have found you!” he cried out, as he kissed her withered cheek.
What mattered it to him that she was aged and infirm, poor and despised? She was his mother, of whom he had dreamed in his youth whom he had always longed to find. He would now devote himself to cherish and support her, and cheer her few remaining days on earth.
“My dear children,” said Dr Morgan, who had entered soon after Moggy had begun her history, “let us learn, from what we have heard, never to cease to put our whole trust and confidence in God. Whatever happens, let us go on praying to God and trusting in God, for let us be assured that He always careth for us.”