The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [82]
CHAP. VII
Whilst my uncle Toby was whistling Lillabullero to my father,—Dr. Slop was stamping, and cursing and damning at Obadiah at a most dreadful rate;——it would have done your heart good, and cured you, Sir, for ever, of the vile sin of swearing to have heard him.—I am determined therefore to relate the whole affair to you.
When Dr. Slop’s maid delivered the green bays bag, with her master’s instruments in it, to Obadiah, she very sensibly exhorted him to put his head and one arm through the strings, and ride with it slung across his body: so undoing the bow-knot, to lengthen the strings for him, without any more ado, she helped him on with it. However, as this, in some measure, unguarded the mouth of the bag, lest any thing should bolt out in galloping back at the speed Obadiah threatened, they consulted to take it off again; and in the great care and caution of their hearts, they had taken the two strings and tied them close (pursing up the mouth of the bag first) with half a dozen hard knots, each of which, Obadiah, to make all safe, had twitched and drawn together with all the strength of his body.
This answered all that Obadiah and the maid intended; but was no remedy against some evils which neither he or she foresaw. The instruments, it seems, as tight as the bag was tied above, had so much room to play in it, towards the bottom, (the shape of the bag being conical) that Obadiah could not make a trot of it, but with such a terrible jingle, what with the tire-tête, forceps and squirt,1 as would have been enough, had Hymen2 been taking a jaunt that way, to have frightened him out of the country; but when Obadiah accelerated this motion, and from a plain trot assayed to prick his coach-horse into a full gallop—by heaven! Sir,—the jingle was incredible.
As Obadiah had a wife and three children—the turpitude of fornication, and the many other political ill consequences of this jingling, never once entered his brain,——he had however his objection, which came home to himself, and weighed with him, as it has oft-times done with the greatest patriots.——“The poor fellow, Sir, was not able to hear himself whistle.”
CHAP. VIII
As Obadiah loved wind musick preferably to all the instrumental musick he carried with him,—he very considerately set his imagination to work, to contrive and to invent by what means he should put himself in a condition of enjoying it.
In all distresses (except musical) where small cords are wanted,——nothing is so apt to enter a man’s head, as his hat-band:——the philosophy of this is so near the surface—I scorn to enter into it.
As Obadiah’s was a mix’d case,——mark, Sirs,—I say, a mix’d case; for it was obstretical,—scrip-tical,—squirtical, papistical,—and as far as the coach-horse was concerned in it,—caball-istical1—and only partly musical;—Obadiah made no scruple of availing himself of the first expedient which offered;—so taking hold of the bag and instruments, and gripeing them hard together with one hand, and with the finger and thumb of the other, putting the end of the hat-band betwixt his teeth, and then slipping his hand down to the middle of it,—he tied and cross-tied them all fast together from one end to the other (as you would cord a trunk) with such a multiplicity of round-abouts and intricate cross turns, with a hard knot at every intersection or point where the strings met,—that Dr. Slop must have had three fifths of Job’s patience at least to have unloosed them.—I think in my conscience, that had NATURE been in one of her nimble moods, and in humour for such a contest——and she and Dr. Slop both fairly started together—there is no man living who had seen the bag with all that Obadiah had done to it,—and known likewise, the great speed the goddess can make when she thinks proper, who would have had the least doubt remaining in his mind——which of the two would have carried off the prize. My