The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman · Laurence Sterne

Volume III, Chapter 85

205 of 315 · 1 min of reading

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.

· · ·

End of part 205 of 315