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well, I thank you, sir,' says I: 'I hope you're well;' wondering out of my senses all the time how 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
