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.,
"Why, sir," answered the Captain, "it is true that we was chased, but that didn't make us the voyage the young lady's obliging enough to praise us for. Off the Scillies a French frigate hove in sight on the weather bow, but what could she do with us? I eased off and got her abeam, soon afterwards on the quarter; I then luffed, sir, making a tight jam of it, and crossed her bows at the distance of about three mile. She threw a few shot at us, but what's a frigate a-going to do with a[Pg 93] vessel as can look up as the Aurora does, until by thunder the wind seems blowing fore-and-aft?",
"Some of these days, madam," said the Admiral, "I trust you will favour me with a sample of the genius that terrified Mr Lawrence and led to your recovery, for which God be praised.".
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