Restored to consciousness, Holden clasped his recovered son to his bosom, and kissed his cheeks, while the young man returned with warmth his demonstrations of affection.  Pownal, we have seen, had been from the first attracted to the Solitary, either by the noble qualities he discovered in him, or from the interest he felt in his romantic mode of life, or from that mysterious sympathy of consanguinity, the existence of which is asserted by some, and denied by others.  He was, therefore, prepared to receive with pleasure the relationship.  Besides, it was a satisfaction to find his father in one, who, however poor his worldly circumstances, and whatever his eccentricities, was evidently a man of education and noble mind.  For the young man was himself a nobleman of nature, who had inherited some of the romance of his father, and, indeed, in whom were slumbering, unconsciously to himself, many traits of character like those of the father, and which needed only opportunity to be developed.

The first words Holden uttered, after recovering from his emotion sufficiently to speak, were: 

“Lord! now let thou thy servant depart, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”

“Do not talk of departing,” said Mr. Pownal.  “It seems to me now is the very time to stay.  Many years of happiness are in store for you.”

“But,” said Holden, “tell me, thou who hast conferred an obligation that can never be repaid, and restored as it were the dead to life, how didst thou become the preserver of my child?”

But a few words are necessary to answer Holden’s questions.  As the happy father sat with his arm over his son’s neck, Mr. Pownal related the following particulars.

“The John Johnson, of whom Esther the squaw told you,” said Mr. Pownal, “was some nineteen or twenty years ago a porter in the employ of our house.  He was an honest, industrious man, who remained in our service until his death, which happened two or three years after the event I am about to relate, and enjoyed our confidence to the last.  It was in the Spring—­the month I do not recollect—­when he came to the counting-room and desired to speak with me in private.  He told me that on the previous evening he had found a child, dressed in rags, asleep upon the steps of his house, and that to preserve it from perishing he had taken it in.  His own family was large, and he was a poor man, else he would willingly keep it.  He knew not exactly what to do, and as he was in the habit of consulting me when in any difficulty, he thought he had better do so now.  It was a pretty lively little boy, but so young that though beginning to speak it was unable to give any account of itself.