The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Laurence Sterne (short novels to read .txt) 📖

tho’ slight skirmishing, and at a distance from the main body, yet drew on the rest; for here, the map usually falling with the back of it, close to the side of the sentry-box, my uncle Toby, in the simplicity of his soul, would lay his hand flat upon it, in order to go on with his explanation; and Mrs. Wadman, by a manoeuvre as quick as thought, would as certainly place her’s close beside it; this at once opened a communication, large enough for any sentiment to pass or repass, which a person skill’d in the elementary and practical part of lovemaking, has occasion for⁠⸺⁠

By bringing up her forefinger parallel (as before) to my uncle Toby’s⁠⸺⁠it unavoidably brought the thumb into action⁠⸺⁠and the forefinger and thumb being once engaged, as naturally brought in the whole hand. Thine, dear uncle Toby! was never now in its right place⁠⸺⁠Mrs. Wadman had it ever to take up, or, with the gentlest pushings, protrusions, and equivocal compressions, that a hand to be removed is capable of receiving⁠⸺⁠to get it press’d a hair breadth of one side out of her way.

Whilst this was doing, how could she forget to make him sensible, that it was her leg (and no one’s else) at the bottom of the sentry-box, which slightly press’d against the calf of his⁠⸺⁠So that my uncle Toby being thus attacked and sore push’d on both his wings⁠⸺⁠was it a wonder, if now and then, it put his centre into disorder?⁠⸺⁠

⸺⁠The duce take it! said my uncle Toby.

XVII

These attacks of Mrs. Wadman, you will readily conceive to be of different kinds; varying from each other, like the attacks which history is full of, and from the same reasons. A general looker-on would scarce allow them to be attacks at all⁠⸺⁠or if he did, would confound them all together⁠⸺⁠but I write not to them: it will be time enough to be a little more exact in my descriptions of them, as I come up to them, which will not be for some chapters; having nothing more to add in this, but that in a bundle of original papers and drawings which my father took care to roll up by themselves, there is a plan of Bouchain in perfect preservation (and shall be kept so, whilst I have power to preserve anything), upon the lower corner of which, on the right hand side, there is still remaining the marks of a snuffy finger and thumb, which there is all the reason in the world to imagine, were Mrs. Wadman’s; for the opposite side of the margin, which I suppose to have been my uncle Toby’s, is absolutely clean: This seems an authenticated record of one of these attacks; for there are vestigia of the two punctures partly grown up, but still visible on the opposite corner of the map, which are unquestionably the very holes, through which it has been pricked up in the sentry-box⁠⸺⁠

By all that is priestly! I value this precious relick, with its stigmata and pricks, more than all the relicks of the Romish church⁠⸺⁠always excepting, when I am writing upon these matters, the pricks which entered the flesh of St. Radagunda in the desert, which in your road from Fesse to Cluny, the nuns of that name will show you for love.

XVIII

I think, an’ please your honour, quoth Trim, the fortifications are quite destroyed⁠⸺⁠and the bason is upon a level with the mole⁠⸺⁠I think so too; replied my uncle Toby with a sigh half suppress’d⁠⸺⁠but step into the parlour, Trim, for the stipulation⁠⸺⁠it lies upon the table.

It has lain there these six weeks, replied the corporal, till this very morning that the old woman kindled the fire with it⁠—

⸺⁠Then, said my uncle Toby, there is no further occasion for our services. The more, an’ please your honour, the pity, said the corporal; in uttering which he cast his spade into the wheelbarrow, which was beside him, with an air the most expressive of disconsolation that can be imagined, and was heavily turning about to look for his pickax, his pioneer’s shovel, his picquets, and other little military stores, in order to carry them off the field⁠⸺⁠when a heigh-ho! from the sentry-box, which being made of thin slit deal, reverberated the sound more sorrowfully to his ear, forbad him.

⸺⁠No; said the corporal to himself, I’ll do it before his honour rises tomorrow morning; so taking his spade out of the wheelbarrow again, with a little earth in it, as if to level something at the foot of the glacis⁠⸺⁠but with a real intent to approach nearer to his master, in order to divert him⁠⸺⁠he loosen’d a sod or two⁠⸺⁠pared their edges with his spade, and having given them a gentle blow or two with the back of it, he sat himself down close by my uncle Toby’s feet, and began as follows.

XIX

It was a thousand pities⁠⸺⁠though I believe, an’ please your honour, I am going to say but a foolish kind of a thing for a soldier⁠⸺⁠

A soldier, cried my uncle Toby, interrupting the corporal, is no more exempt from saying a foolish thing, Trim, than a man of letters⁠⸺⁠But not so often, an’ please your honour, replied the corporal⁠⸺⁠My uncle Toby gave a nod.

It was a thousand pities then, said the corporal, casting his eye upon Dunkirk, and the mole, as Servius Sulpicius, in returning out of Asia (when he sailed from Ægina towards Megara), did upon Corinth and Pyreus⁠⸺⁠

—“It was a thousand pities, an’ please your honour, to destroy these works⁠⸺⁠and a thousand pities to have let them stood.”⁠⸺⁠

⸺⁠Thou art right, Trim, in both cases; said my uncle Toby.⁠⸺⁠This, continued the corporal, is the reason, that from the beginning of their demolition to the end⁠⸺⁠I have never once whistled, or sung, or laugh’d, or cry’d, or talk’d of past done deeds, or told your honour one story good or bad⁠⸺⁠

⸺⁠Thou hast many excellencies, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and I hold it not the least