oom, for there was
such a heaving and pitching, that he believed he should shift his
ballast. The fellow understood no part of this address but the word
brandy, at mention of which he disappeared. Then Crowe, throwing himself
into an elbow chair, "Stop my hawse-holes," cried he, "I can't think
what's the matter, brother; but, egad, my head sings and simmers like a
pot of chowder. My eyesight yaws to and again, d'ye see; then there's
such a walloping and whushing in my hold--smite me--Lord have mercy upon
us. Here, you swab, ne'er mind the glass, hand me the noggin."

The latter part of this address was directed to the waiter, who had
returned with a quartern of brandy, which Crowe, snatching eagerly,
started into his bread-room at one cant. Indeed, there was no time to be
lost, inasmuch as he seemed to be on the verge of fainting away when he
swallowed this cordial, by which he was instantaneously revived.

He then desired the servant to unbuckle the straps of his helmet, but
this was a task which the drawer could not perform, even though assisted
with the good offices of Sir Launcelot, for the head and jaws were so
much swelled with the discipline they had undergone, that the straps and
buckles lay buried, as it were, in pits formed by the tumefaction of the
adjacent parts.

Fortunately for the novice, a neighbouring surgeon passed by the door on
horseback, a circumstance which the waiter, who saw him from the window,
no sooner disclosed, than the knight had recourse to his assistance.
This practitioner having viewed the whole figure, and more particularly
the head of Crowe, in silent wonder, proceeded to feel his pulse, and
then declared, that as the inflammation was very great, and going on with
violence to its acme, it would be necessary to begin with copious
phlebotomy, and then to empty the intestinal canal. So saying, he began
to strip the arm of the captain, who perceiving his aim, "Avast,
brother," cried he, "you go the wrong way to work; you may as well
rummage the afterhold when the damage is in the forecastle; I shall right
again when my jaws are unhooped."

With these words he drew a clasp-knife from his pocket, and, advancing to
a glass, applied it so vigorously to the leathern straps of his
headpiece, that the gordian knot was cut, without any other damage to his
face than a moderate scarification, which, added to the tumefaction of
features naturally strong, and a whole week's growth of a very b