• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1887 0

of it myself.—But to think, may it please your honour, continued Trim, a tear stealing into the corner of his eye as he spoke—to think of two virtuous lads with hearts as warm in their bodies, and as honest as God could make them—the children of honest people, going forth with gallant spirits to seek their fortunes in the world—and fall into such evils!—poor Tom! to be tortured upon a rack for nothing—but marrying a Jew’s widow who sold sausages—honest Dick Johnson’s soul to be scourged out of his body, for the ducats another man put into his knapsack!—O!—these are misfortunes, cried Trim, pulling out his handkerchief—these are misfortunes, may it please your honour, worth lying down and crying over.

—My father could not help blushing.

—’twould be a pity, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, thou shouldst ever feel sorrow of thy own—thou feelest it so tenderly for others.—Alack-o-day, replied the corporal, brightening up his face—your honour knows I have neither wife or child——I can have no sorrows in this world.—My father could not help smiling.—As few as any man, Trim, replied my uncle Toby; nor can I see how a fellow of thy light heart can suffer, but from the distress of poverty in thy old age—when thou art passed all services, Trim,—and hast out-lived thy friends—An’please your honour, never fear, replied Trim chearily—But I would have thee never fear, Trim, replied my uncle; and therefore, continued my uncle Toby, throwing down his crutch, and getting up upon his legs as he uttered the word therefore—in recompence, Trim, of thy long fidelity to me, and that goodness of thy heart I have had such proofs of—whilst thy master is worth a shilling—thou shalt never ask elsewhere, Trim, for a penny. Trim attempted to thank my uncle Toby,—but had not power—tears trickled down his cheeks faster than he could wipe them off—He laid his hands upon his breast—made a bow to the ground, and shut the door.

—I have left Trim my bowling-green, cried my uncle Toby—My father smiled—I have left him moreover a pension, continued my uncle Toby—My father looked grave.

CHAP. V

Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of PENSIONS and GRENADIERS?

CHAP. VI

When my uncle Toby first mentioned the grenadier, my father, I said, fell down with his nose flat to the quilt, and as suddenly as if my uncle Toby had shot him; but it was not added, that every other limb and member of my father instantly relapsed with his nose into the same precise attitude in which he lay first described; so that when corporal Trim left the room, and my father found himself disposed to rise off the bed,—he had all the little preparatory movements to run over again, before he could do it.—Attitudes are nothing, madam,—’tis the transition from one attitude to another—like the preparation and resolution of the discord into harmony, which is all in all.1

For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe upon the floor—pushed the chamber-pot still a little farther within the valance—gave a hem—raised himself up upon his elbow—and was just beginning to address himself to my uncle Toby—when recollecting the unsuccessfulness of his first effort in that attitude,—he got upon his legs, and in making the third turn across the room, he stopped short before my uncle Toby; and laying the three first fingers of his right-hand in the palm of his left, and stooping a little, he addressed himself to my uncle Toby as follows.

CHAP. VII

When I reflect, brother Toby, upon MAN; and take a view of that dark side of him which represents his life as open to so many causes of trouble—when I consider, brother Toby, how oft we eat the bread of affliction, and that we are born to it,1 as to the portion of our inheritance—I was born to nothing, quoth my uncle Toby, interrupting my father—but my commission. Zooks!2 said my father, did not my uncle leave you a hundred and twenty pounds a year?—What could I have done without it? replied my uncle Toby.—That’s another concern, said my father testily—But I say, Toby, when one runs over the catalogue of all the cross