Part 73

“—There must certainly be some mistake in this matter,” quoth he.

Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be interrupted in a story——and I was that moment telling Eugenius a most tawdry one in my way, of a nun who fancied herself a shell-fish, and of a monk damn’d for eating a muscle, and was shewing him the grounds and justice of the procedure——

“—Did ever so grave a personage get into so vile a scrape?” quoth Death. Thou hast had a narrow escape, Tristram, said Eugenius, taking hold of my hand as I finished my story——

But there is no living, Eugenius, replied I, at this rate; for as this son of a whore has found out my lodgings——

—You call him rightly, said Eugenius,—for by sin, we are told, he enter’d the world——I care not which way he enter’d, quoth I, provided he be not in such a hurry to take me out with him—for I have forty volumes to write, and forty thousand things to say and do which no body in the world will say and do for me, except thyself; and as thou seest he has got me by the throat (for Eugenius could scarce hear me speak across the table), and that I am no match for him in the open field, had I not better, whilst these few scatter’d spirits remain, and these two spider legs of mine (holding one of them up to him) are able to support me—had I not better, Eugenius, fly for my life? ’Tis my advice, my dear Tristram, said Eugenius—Then by heaven! I will lead him a dance he little thinks of——for I will gallop, quoth I, without looking once behind me, to the banks of the Garonne; and if I hear him clattering at my heels——I’ll scamper away to mount Vesuvius——from thence to Joppa, and from Joppa to the world’s end; where, if he follows me, I pray God he may break his neck——

—He runs more risk there, said Eugenius, than thou.

Eugenius’s wit and affection brought blood into the cheek from whence it had been some months banish’d——’twas a vile moment to bid adieu in; he led me to my chaise——Allons! said I; the post-boy gave a crack with his whip——off I went like a cannon, and in half a dozen bounds got into Dover.

C H A P. LXXXV

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.

C H A P. LXXXVI

IT is a great inconvenience to a man in a haste, that there are three distinct roads between Calais and Paris, in behalf of which there is so much to be said by the several deputies from the towns which lie along them, that half a day is easily lost in settling which you’ll take.

First, the road by Lisle and Arras, which is the most about——but most interesting, and instructing.

The second, that by Amiens, which you may go, if you would see Chantilly——

And that by Beauvais, which you may go, if you will.

For this reason a great many chuse to go by Beauvais.

C H A P. LXXXVII

“NOW before I quit Calais,” a travel-writer would say, “it would not be amiss to give some account of “it.”—Now I think it very much amiss—that a man cannot go quietly through a town and let it alone, when it does not meddle with him, but that he must be turning about and drawing his pen at every kennel he crosses over, merely o’ my conscience for the sake of drawing it; because, if we may judge from what has been wrote of these things, by all who have wrote and gallop’d—or who have gallop’d and wrote, which is a different way still; or who, for more expedition than the rest, have wrote galloping, which is the way I do at present——from the great Addison, who did it with his satchel of school books hanging at his a—, and galling his beast’s crupper at every stroke—there is not a gallopper of us all who might not have gone on ambling quietly in his own ground (in case he had any), and have wrote all he had to write, dry-shod, as well as not.

For my own part, as heaven is my judge, and to which I shall ever make my last appeal—I know no more of Calais (except the little my barber told me of it as he was whetting his razor) than I do this moment of Grand Cairo; for it was dusky in the evening when I landed, and dark as pitch in the morning when I set out, and yet by merely knowing what is what, and by drawing this from that in one part of the town, and by spelling and putting this and that together in another—I would lay any travelling odds, that I this moment write a chapter upon Calais as long as my arm; and with so distinct and satisfactory a detail of every item, which is worth a stranger’s curiosity in the town—that you would take me for the town-clerk of Calais itself—and where, sir, would be the wonder? was not Democritus, who laughed ten times more than I—town-clerk of Abdera? and was not (I forget his name) who had more discretion than us both, town-clerk of Ephesus?——it should be penn’d moreover, sir, with so much knowledge and good sense, and truth, and precision——

—Nay—if you don’t believe me, you may read the chapter for your pains.