The night came on very dark and stormy, and many of the women suffered as much from the pitching of the boat as if they had been at sea. The ladies' cabin was crowded to overflowing; every sofa, bed, and chair was occupied; and my young friend, who did not feel any inconvenience from the storm, was greatly entertained by the dialogues carried on across the cabin by the women, who were reposing in their berths, and lamenting over the rough weather and their own sufferings in consequence. They were mostly the wives of farmers and respectable mechanics, and the language they used was neither very choice nor grammatical. "I say, Mrs. C---, how be you?" "I feel bad, any how," with a smothered groan. "Have you been sick?" "Not yet; but feel as if I was going to." "How's your head coming on, Mrs. N---?" "It's just splitting, I thank you." "Oh, how awful the boat do pitch!" cries a third. "If she should sink, I'm afeard we shall all go to the bottom." "And think of all the poor sheep and cattle!" "Well, of course, they'd have to go too." "Oh, mi! I'll get up, and be ready for a start, in case of the worst," cried a young girl. "Mrs. C---, do give me something good out of your basket, to keep up my spirits." "Well, I will. Come over here, and you and I will have some talk. My basket's at the foot of my berth. You'll find in it a small bottle of brandy and some crulls." So up got several of the sick ladies, and kept up their spirits by eating cakes, chewing gum, and drinking cold brandy punch. "Did Mrs. H--- lose much in the fire last night?" said one. "Oh, dear, yes; she lost all her clothes, and three large jars of preserves she made about a week ago, and _sarce in accordance!_" [A common Yankee phrase, often used instead of the word proportion.] There was an honest Yorkshire farmer and his wife on board, and when the morning at length broke through pouring rain and driving mist, and the port to which they were bound loomed through the haze, the women were very anxious to know if their husbands, who slept in the gentlemen's cabin, were awake." "They arn't stirring yet," said Mrs. G---, "for I hear Isaac (meaning her husband) _breezing_ below"--a most expressive term for very hard snoring. The same Isaac, when he came up to the ladies' cabin to take his wife on shore, complained, in his broad Yorkshire dialect, that he had been kept awake all night by a jovial gentleman who had been his fellow-traveller in the cabin. "We had terrible noisy chap in t'cabin. They called him Mr. D---, and said he 'twas t'mayor of Belleville; but I thought they were a-fooning. He wouldn't sleep himself, nor let t'others sleep. He gat piper, an' put him top o' table, and kept him playing all t'night." One would think that friend Isaac had been haunted by the vision of the piper in his dreams; for, certes, the jovial buzzing of the pipes had not been able to drown the deep drone of his own nasal organ.