Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/186

 weren't so much awkward as peaceful, for after I'd pushed and struggled for a power o' time, I just resigned myself to my fate, feelin' thankful that at any rate I had had the privilege of bein' my own undertaker. I shall never forget my feelin's when my last bit of breath came up and went out. It was just the sort o' feelin' you gets when you drowns, only more so. 'Cos when you drowns you sees all the bad actions of your life a-troopin' before you, but gettin' buried alive is different, 'cos you sees all the good actions wot you've done. Mind you, things I'd clean forgot. Little acts of kindness wot I thought could never have been recorded anywhere. Why, they all walked out, and I seemed to be greatly comforted, 'cos, you see, I thought as how I was quite in the runnin' for heaven. In fact I was so pleased with my past self that I fairly kicked with delight, and that was the means of bringin' me back to earth, 'cos over went these trestles, and the jar I got knocked the stuck lid off. No, I've been near gone these many times, but never so near gone as that, for, as you see, I was finished with the undertaker having undertook myself, and I only had to be passed through the parson's hands and get knocked over the sconce with the sexton's shovel, as Shakespeare says in the play, to be a real 'gonner,' stiff and proper."

"A horrible experience, Master Sexton," returned the captain.

"It was in a sense. But I could tell you horribler.