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⟨well⟩, I thank you, sir,' says I: 'I hope you're ⟨well⟩;' wondering out of my senses all the time now an eagle came to speak like a Christian. 'What brings you here, Dan?' says he: 'Nothing at all, sir,' says I: only I wish I was safe home again. Is it out of the island you want to go, Dan?' says he. ''Tis sir,' says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much, and fell into the water; how I swam to the island; and how I got into the bog and did not know my way out of it. 'Dan,' says he, after a minute's thought, 'though it is very improper for you to get drunk on Lady-day, yet as you are a decent, sober man, who tends mass well, and never flings stones at me or mine, nor cries out after us in the fields-my life for yours,' says he; 'so get up on my back, and grip me well for fear you'd fall off, and I'll fly you out of the bog,'—I am afraid, says I, your honour's making game of me; for who ever heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before? 'Pon the honour of a gentleman, says he putting his right foot on his breast I am quite in earnest, and so now either take my offer or starve in the bog-besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.
It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute going from under me. I had no choice: so thinks I to myself, faint heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance;—I
