CHAPTER XVII

Though my father travelled homewards, as I told you, in none of the best of moods, --pshawing and pishing all the way down, --yet he had the complaisance to keep the worst part of the story still to himself; --which was the resolution he had taken of doing himself the justice, which my uncle _Toby’s_ clause in the marriage-settlement empowered him; nor was it till the very night in which I was begot, which was thirteen months after, that she had the least intimation of his design: when my father, happening, as you remember, to be a little chagrin’d and out of temper, ----took occasion as they lay chatting gravely in bed afterwards, talking over what was to come, ----to let her know that she must accommodate herself as well as she could to the bargain made between them in their marriage-deeds; which was to lye-in of her next child in the country, to balance the last year’s journey.

My father was a gentleman of many virtues, --but he had a strong spice of that in his temper, which might, or might not, add to the number. --’Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause, --and of obstinacy in a bad one: Of this my mother had so much knowledge, that she knew ’twas to no purpose to make any remonstrance, --so she e’en resolved to sit down quietly, and make the most of it.

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