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——