CHAPTER VI THE LETTER,
The man waited outside for Mr Lawrence. When he appeared he seized his hand, and fell upon his crooked knees and kissed and slobbered his hand, and blubbered, with tears trickling down his face, "that so help him his good God, come what might he would do anything, no matter what, to serve his honour, he would die for his honour; let his honour command him to jump into the river then and there and drown himself, he'd do it if only to please him." His gestures whilst on his knees, his extraordinary grimaces, the strange, wild terms in which he expressed his pathetic gratitude for this condescension of a gentleman in taking notice of, and rescuing from gaol a poor, pitiful vagabond, a child of the parish,[Pg 119] a no man's son, nor woman's either, a creature who lived he could not tell how, sometimes by stealing a raw vegetable, sometimes by running an errand, sometimes by the bounty of a tradesman who might fling him a crust, or of some drunken fisherman who might toss him a shilling to sing him a song and dance as he sang, a performance so hideously uncouth that Hogarth would have immortalised it could he have witnessed it; his gratitude, in short, was so diverting, at the same time moving in its appeal to pity, that Mr Lawrence could scarcely forbear a laugh, and indeed did laugh when he got rid of the fellow and walked away.,
"The best course we can adopt," cried Lord Garlies, "is to keep the width of the horizons between us. I will take the western and you the eastern seaboard. This from aloft will enable us to command a large surface of sea. The rig of the vessel you are chasing will determine her for us. If I sight such a vessel on the starboard bow, I will hoist a large red flag at the mizzen-royal-masthead; if on the larboard bow, a white flag at the same place. You will hoist your answering signal and manœuvre to close us; but that shall be as the wind may prove. If you sight your ship, it will suffice if you hoist your ensign at your mizzen topmast head, and an answering signal will tell you that we intend to close with you in chase.".
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