CHAPTER II

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--! everything 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.

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