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.,
Then between them fell silence, filled with understanding and contentment and thoughts that ran parallel the same long track through future promise. Billy spoke, at length: "He's goin' to take the school ag'in. An' him an' me are goin' to build that sail-boat we've always wanted—a big broad-beamed, single sticker that'll carry all of us—you, me, teacher, Erie an' anybody wants to come along. Gee! ain't it great?",
Tonight as Hinter rode through the pine-scented gloom the light-house keeper sat in his big chair beside the window that looked upon the lake. Spent from a trying fit of coughing, his nerves crying for the rest which was denied him, the sick man had gazed across to where the shuttle of sunset was weaving its fabric of changing colors upon sky and water. But he had not seen those glad lights; had not heard the cries of the haven-seeking gulls or the soft plaintive notes of the night birds from the Point forest. The lights had flashed and departed unseen, the wild calls had been voiced and sunk to silence unheard, because a tenderer light, which had belonged to this, his own hour, had vanished; a sweeter song than even night birds could voice had been stilled—the light in his Erie's eyes and the low notes from her glad heart..
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