Now hang it! quoth I, as I look'd towards the French coast--a man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad--and I never gave a peep into Rochester church, or took notice of the dock of Chatham, or visited St. Thomas at Canterbury, though they all three laid in my way----But mine, indeed, is a particular case--
So without arguing the matter further with Thomas o'Becket, or any one else--I skip'd into the boat, and in five minutes we got under sail, and scudded away like the wind.
Pray, captain, quoth I, as I was going down into the cabin, is a man never overtaken by Death in this passage?
Why, there is not time for a man to be sick in it, replied he--What a cursed lyar! for I am sick as a horse, quoth I, already--what a brain!--upside down!--hey-day! the cells are broke loose one into another, and the blood, and the lymph, and the nervous juices, with the fix'd and volatile salts, are all jumbled into one mass--good G..! every thing turns round in it like a thousand whirlpools--I'd give a shilling to know if I shan't write the clearer for it--Sick! sick! sick! sick!--
--When shall we get to land? captain--they have hearts like stones--O I am deadly sick!--reach me that thing, boy--'tis the most discomfiting sickness--I wish I was at the bottom--Madam! how is it with you? Undone! undone! un. . .--O! undone! sir--What the first time?--No, 'tis the second, third, sixth, tenth time, sir,--hey-day!--what a trampling over head!--hollo! cabin boy! what's the matter?
The wind chopp'd about! s'Death--then I shall meet him full in the face.
What luck!--'tis chopp'd about again, master--O the devil chop it--Captain, quoth she, for heaven's sake, let us get ashore.
