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CHAP. XIX

’Tis a pity, Trim, said my uncle Toby, resting with his hand upon the corporal’s shoulder, as they both stood surveying their works,—that we have not a couple of field pieces to mount in the gorge of that new redoubt;——’twould secure the lines all along there, and make the attack on that side quite complete:——get me a couple cast, Trim.

Your honour shall have them, replied Trim, before to-morrow morning.

It was the joy of Trim’s heart,—nor was his fertile head ever at a loss for expedients in doing it, to supply my uncle Toby in his campaigns, with whatever his fancy called for; had it been his last crown, he would have sate down and hammered it into a paderero to have prevented1 a single wish in his Master. The corporal had already,—what with cutting off the ends of my uncle Toby’s spouts—hacking and chiseling up the sides of his leaden gutters,—melting down his pewter shaving bason,—and going at last, like Lewis the fourteenth,2 on to the top of the church, for spare ends, &c.——he had that very campaign brought no less than eight new battering cannons, besides three demi-culverins into the field; my uncle Toby’s demand for two more pieces for the redoubt, had set the corporal at work again; and no better resource offering, he had taken the two leaden weights from the nursery window: and as the sash pullies, when the lead was gone, were of no kind of use, he had taken them away also, to make a couple of wheels for one of their carriages.

He had dismantled every sash window in my uncle Toby’s house long before, in the very same way,—though not always in the same order; for sometimes the pullies had been wanted, and not the lead,—so then he began with the pullies,—and the pullies being picked out, then the lead became useless,—and so the lead went to pot too.

——A great MORAL might be picked handsomly out of this, but I have not time—’tis enough to say, wherever the demolition began, ’twas equally fatal to the sash window.

CHAP. XX

The corporal had not taken his measures so badly in this stroke of artilleryship, but that he might have kept the matter entirely to himself, and left Susannah to have sustained the whole weight of the attack, as she could;—true courage is not content with coming off so.——The corporal, whether as general or comptroller of the train,—’twas no matter,——had done that, without which, as he imagined, the misfortune could never have happened,—at least in Susannah’s hands;——How would your honours have behaved?——He determined at once, not to take shelter behind Susannah,—but to give it; and with this resolution upon his mind, he marched upright into the parlour, to lay the whole manœuvre before my uncle Toby.

My uncle Toby had just then been giving Yorick an account of the Battle of Steenkirk,1 and of the strange conduct of count Solmes in ordering the foot to halt, and the horse to march where it could not act; which was directly contrary to the king’s commands, and proved the loss of the day.

There are incidents in some families so pat to the purpose of what is going to follow,—they are scarce exceeded by the invention of a dramatic writer;—I mean of ancient days.———

Trim, by the help of his forefinger, laid flat upon the table, and the edge of his hand striking a-cross it at right angles, made a shift to tell his story so, that priests and virgins might have listened to it;2—and the story being told,—the dialogue went on as follows.

CHAP. XXI

——I would be picquetted to death,1 cried the corporal, as he concluded Susannah’s story, before I would suffer the woman to come to any harm,—’twas my fault, an’ please your Honour,—not hers.

Corporal Trim, replied my uncle Toby, putting on his hat which lay upon the table,——if any thing can be said to be a fault, when the service absolutely requires it should be done,—’tis I certainly who deserve the blame,——you obeyed your orders.

Had count Solmes, Trim, done the same at the battle of Steenkirk, said Yorick, drolling a little upon the corporal, who had