Who now could have believed the devil had any snare at the bottom of all this, or that I was in any danger on such an occasion so remote and out of the way as this was? But the event was the oddest that could be thought of. As it happened, Amy was not at home when we accepted this invitation, and so she was left out of the company; but instead of Amy we took our honest, good-humoured, never-to-be-omitted friend the Quaker, one of the best creatures that ever lived, sure, and who, besides a thousand good qualities unmixed with one bad one, was particularly excellent for being the best company in the world. Though I think I had carried Amy too if she had not been engaged in this unhappy girl’s affair; for on a sudden the girl was lost and no news was to be heard of her, and Amy had hunted her to every place she could think of that it was likely to find her in, but all the news she could hear of her was that she was gone to an old comrade’s house of hers which she called sister, and who was married to a master of a ship who lived at Redriff, and even this the jade never told me. It seems when this girl was directed by Amy to get her some breeding, go to the boarding-school and the like, she was recommended to a boarding-school at Camberwell, and there she contracted an acquaintance with a young lady (so they are all called) her bedfellow, that they called sisters, and promised never to break off their acquaintance. But judge you what an unaccountable surprise I must be in when I came on board the ship and was brought into the captain’s cabin, or what they call it, the great cabin of the ship, to see his lady or wife, and another young person with her, who when I came to see her near-hand was my old cook-maid in the Pall Mall, and, as appeared by the sequel of the story, was neither more nor less than my own daughter. That I knew her was out of doubt, for though she had not had opportunity to see me very often, yet I had often seen her, as I must needs, being in my own family so long.
If ever I had need of courage and a full presence of mind, it was now; it was the only valuable secret in the world to me; all depended upon this occasion. If the girl knew me, I was undone, and to discover any surprise or disorder had been to make her know me, or guess it, and discover herself.
I was once going to feign a swooning, and faint away, and so falling on the ground or floor, put them all into a hurry and fright, and by that means get an opportunity to be continually holding something to my nose to smell to, and so hold my hand or my handkerchief, or both, before my mouth, then pretend I could not bear the smell of the ship or the closeness of the cabin. But that would have been only to remove into a clearer air upon the quarter-deck, where we should with it have had a clearer light too; and if I had pretended the smell of the ship, it would have served only to have carried us all on shore to the captain’s house, which was hard by; for the ship lay so close to the shore that we only walked over a plank to go on board, and over another ship which lay within her. So this not appearing feasible, and the thought not being two minutes old, there was no time, for the two ladies rose up and we saluted, so that I was bound to come so near my girl as to kiss her, which I would not have done had it been possible to have avoided it, but there was no room to escape.
I cannot but take notice here that, notwithstanding there was a secret horror upon my mind and I was ready to sink when I came close to her to salute her, yet it was a secret inconceivable pleasure to me when I kissed her, to know that I kissed my own child, my own flesh and blood, born of my body, and whom I had never kissed since I took the fatal farewell of them all, with a million of tears and a heart almost dead with grief, when Amy and the good woman took them all away and went with them to Spitalfields. No pen can describe, no words can express, I say, the strange impression which this thing made upon my spirits. I felt something shoot through my blood, my heart fluttered, my head flashed and was dizzy, and all within me, as I thought, turned about, and much ado I had not to abandon myself to an excess of passion at the first sight of her, much more when my lips touched her face. I thought I must have taken her in my arms and kissed her again a thousand times, whether I would or no.