There is nothing so awkward, as courting a woman, an’ please your honour, whilst she is making sausages——So Tom began a discourse upon them; first, gravely,——“as how they were made——with what meats, herbs, and spices”—Then a little gayly,—as, “With what skins——and if they never burst——Whether the largest were not the best?”——and so on—taking care only as he went along, to season what he had to say upon sausages, rather under than over;——that he might have room to act in——
It was owing to the neglect of that very precaution, said my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon Trim’s shoulder, that Count De la Motte lost the battle of Wynendale: he pressed too speedily into the wood; which if he had not done, Lisle had not fallen into our hands, nor Ghent and Bruges, which both followed her example; it was so late in the year, continued my uncle Toby, and so terrible a season came on, that if things had not fallen out as they did, our troops must have perish’d in the open field.——
——Why, therefore, may not battles, an’ please your honour, as well as marriages, be made in heaven?—My uncle Toby mused——
Religion inclined him to say one thing, and his high idea of military skill tempted him to say another; so not being able to frame a reply exactly to his mind——my uncle Toby said nothing at all; and the corporal finished his story.
As Tom perceived, an’ please your honour, that he gained ground, and that all he had said upon the subject of sausages was kindly taken, he went on to help her a little in making them.——First, by taking hold of the ring of the sausage whilst she stroked the forced meat down with her hand——then by cutting the strings into proper lengths, and holding them in his hand, whilst she took them out one by one——then, by putting them across her mouth, that she might take them out as she wanted them——and so on from little to more, till at last he adventured to tie the sausage himself, whilst she held the snout.——
——Now a widow, an’ please your honour, always chuses a second husband as unlike the first as she can: so the affair was more than half settled in her mind before Tom mentioned it. 449
She made a feint however of defending herself, by snatching up a sausage:——Tom instantly laid hold of another———
But seeing Tom’s had more gristle in it———
She signed the capitulation——and Tom sealed it; and there was an end of the matter.
CHAPTER VIII
All womankind, continued Trim, (commenting upon his story) from the highest to the lowest, an’ please your honour, love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they chuse to have them cut; and there is no knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.——
——I like the comparison, said my uncle Toby, better than the thing itself——
——Because your honour, quoth the corporal, loves glory, more than pleasure.
I hope, Trim, answered my uncle Toby, I love mankind more than either; and as the knowledge of arms tends so apparently to the good and quiet of the world——and particularly that branch of it which we have practised together in our bowling-green, has no object but to shorten the strides of Ambition, and intrench the lives and fortunes of the few, from the plunderings of the many——whenever that drum beats in our ears, I trust, corporal, we shall neither of us want so much humanity and fellow-feeling, as to face about and march.
In pronouncing this, my uncle Toby faced about, and march’d firmly as at the head of his company——and the faithful corporal, shouldering his stick, and striking his hand upon his coat-skirt as he took his first step——march’d close behind him down the avenue.
——Now what can their two noddles be about? cried my father to my mother——by all that’s strange, they are besieging Mrs. Wadman in form, and are marching round her house to mark out the lines of circumvallation.
I dare say, quoth my mother——————But stop, dear Sir——for what my mother dared to say upon the occasion——and what my father did say upon it——with her replies and his rejoinders, shall be read, perused, paraphrased, commented, and descanted upon—or to say it all in a word, shall be thumb’d over by Posterity in a chapter apart——I say, by Posterity—and 450 care not, if I repeat the word again—for what has this book done more than the Legation of Moses, or the Tale of a Tub, that it may not swim down the gutter of Time along with them?
I will not argue the matter: Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more——everything presses on——whilst thou art twisting that lock,——see! it grows grey; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make.——
——Heaven have mercy upon us both!
CHAPTER IX
Now, for what the world thinks of that ejaculation——I would not give a groat.
CHAPTER X
My mother had gone with her left arm twisted in my father’s right, till they had got to the fatal angle of the old garden wall, where Doctor Slop was overthrown by Obadiah on the coach-horse: as this was directly opposite to the front of Mrs. Wadman’s house, when my father came to it, he gave a look across; and seeing my uncle Toby and the corporal within ten paces of the door, he turn’d about——“Let us just stop a moment, quoth my father, and see with what ceremonies my brother Toby and his man Trim make their first entry——it will not detain us, added my father, a single minute:”——No matter, if it be ten minutes, quoth my mother.
——It will not detain us half one; said my father.
The corporal was just then setting in with the story of his brother Tom and the Jew’s widow: the story went on—and on——it had episodes in it——it came back, and went on——and on again; there was no end of it——the reader found it very long——
——G— help my father! he pish’d fifty times at every new attitude, and gave the corporal’s stick, with all its flourishings and dangling, to as many devils as chose to accept of them.
When issues of events like these my father is waiting for, are 451 hanging in the scales of fate, the mind has the advantage of changing the principle of expectation three times, without which it would not have power to see it out.
Curiosity governs the first moment; and the second moment is all œconomy to justify the expence of the first——and for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth moments, and so on to the day of judgment—’tis a point of Honour.
I need not be told, that the ethic writers have assigned this all to Patience; but that Virtue, methinks, has extent of dominion sufficient of her own, and enough to do in it, without invading the few dismantled castles which Honour has left him upon the earth.