“I’m what?” said Mrs. Mulrooney, her blood rushing to her face and temples as she spoke—­for the same reason as her fair townswoman is reported to have borne with stoical fortitude every harsh epithet of the language, until it occurred to her opponent to tell her that “the divil a bit better she was nor a pronoun;” so Mrs. Mulrooney, taking “omne ignotum pro horribili,” became perfectly beside herself at the unlucky phrase.  “I’m what? repate it av ye dare, and I’ll tear yer eyes out?  Ye dirty bla—­guard, to be lying there at yer ease under the blankets, grinning at me.  What’s your thrade—­answer me that—­av it isn’t to wait on the ladies, eh?”

“Oh, the woman must be mad,” said Sir Stewart.

“The devil a taste mad, my dear—­I’m only sick.  Now just come over to me, like a decent creature, and give me the dhrop of comfort ye have.  Come, avick.”

“Go over to you?”

“Ay, and why not? or if it’s so lazy ye are, why then I’ll thry and cross over to your side.”

These words being accompanied by a certain indication of change of residence on the part of Mrs. Mulrooney, Sir Stewart perceived there was no time to lose, and springing from his berth, he rushed half-dressed through the cabin, and up the companion-ladder, just as Mrs. Mulrooney had protruded a pair of enormous legs from her couch, and hung for a moment pendulous before she dropped upon the floor, and followed him to the deck.  A tremendous shout of laughter from the sailors and deck passengers prevented my hearing the dialogue which ensued; nor do I yet know how Mrs. Mulrooney learned her mistake.  Certain it is, she no more appeared among the passengers in the cabin, and Sir Stewart’s manner the following morning at breakfast amply satisfied me that I had had my revenge.

CHAPTER X.

Upset—­mind—­and
body.

No sooner in Liverpool, than I hastened to take my place in the earliest conveyance for London.  At that time the Umpire Coach was the perfection of fast travelling; and seated behind the box, enveloped in a sufficiency of broad-cloth, I turned my face towards town with as much anxiety and as ardent expectations as most of those about me.  All went on in the regular monotonous routine of such matters until we reached Northampton, passing down the steep street of which town, the near wheel-horse stumbled and fell; the coach, after a tremendous roll to one side, toppled over on the other, and with a tremendous crash, and sudden shock, sent all the outsides, myself among the number, flying through the air like sea-gulls.  As for me, after describing a very respectable parabola, my angle of incidence landed me in a bonnet-maker’s shop, having passed through a large plate-glass window, and destroyed more leghorns and dunstables than a year’s pay would recompense.  I have but light recollection of the details of that occasion,