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 Jim he begged him not to do that. 'We'll pay you whatever's right fer your horse, sir,' he says, but Johnston jest snorted. 'Where would you get fifty dollars!' he says, but Jim, he nudged me to keep quiet, an' said: 'I've got fifty dollars of my very own, right here, sir. We'll buy your horse an' take chances on findin' him, if you'll sell him to us.',
He found Captain Weaver, the master of the brig, and the captain of the brig in conversation. The skipper of the brig had made no[Pg 363] entry touching his falling in with the Minorca. He could depend upon nothing but his memory, and to the best of his recollection he had given to Captain Weaver the latitude and longitude in which he had spoken the Minorca on the morning before the previous day. It was at least certain that the barque was within easy sailing reach of the schooner; it was equally sure that the schooner was almost directly in the tail of the wake of the Minorca, and that if Captain Weaver continued the course he had been steering he was bound to overhaul her, providing the schooner was the swifter vessel..
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