CHAPTER V
When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion, --or, in other words, when his HOBBY-HORSE grows headstrong, ----farewel cool reason and fair discretion!
My uncle _Toby’s_ wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon recovered his surprize, and could get leave to say as much----he told him, ’twas just beginning to incarnate; and that if no fresh exfoliation happened, which there was no sign of, --it would be dried up in five or six weeks. The sound of as many Olympiads, twelve hours before, would have conveyed an idea of shorter duration to my uncle _Toby’s_ mind. ----The succession of his ideas was now rapid, --he broiled with impatience to put his design in execution; ----and so, without consulting farther with any soul living, --which, by the bye, I think is right, when you are predetermined to take no one soul’s advice, ----he privately ordered _Trim_, his man, to pack up a bundle of lint and dressings, and hire a chariot-and-four to be at the door exactly by twelve o’clock that day, when he knew my father would be upon ’Change. ----So leaving a banknote upon the table for the surgeon’s care of him, and a letter of tender thanks for his brother’s--he packed up his maps, his books of fortification, his instruments, &c., and by the help of a crutch on one side, and _Trim_ on the other, ----my uncle _Toby_ embarked for _Shandy-Hall_.
The reason, or rather the rise of this sudden demigration was as follows:
The table in my uncle _Toby’s_ room, and at which, the night before this change happened, he was sitting with his maps, &c., about him--being somewhat of the smallest, for that infinity of great and small instruments of knowledge which usually lay crowded upon it--he had the accident, in reaching over for his tobacco-box, to throw down his compasses, and in stooping to take the compasses up, with his sleeve he threw down his case of instruments and snuffers; --and as the dice took a run against him, in his endeavouring to catch the snuffers in falling, ----he thrust Monsieur _Blondel_ off the table, and Count _de Pagan_ o’top of him.
’Twas to no purpose for a man, lame as my uncle _Toby_ was, to think of redressing these evils by himself, --he rung his bell for his man _Trim_; ------_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, prithee see what confusion I have here been making --I must have some better contrivance, _Trim_. ----Can’st not thou take my rule, and measure the length and breadth of this table, and then go and bespeak me one as big again? ----Yes, an’ please your Honour, replied _Trim_, making a bow; but I hope your Honour will be soon well enough to get down to your country-seat, where, --as your Honour takes so much pleasure in fortification, we could manage this matter to a T.
I must here inform you, that this servant of my uncle _Toby’s_, who went by the name of _Trim_, had been a corporal in my uncle’s own company, --his real name was _James Butler_, --but having got the nick-name of _Trim_ in the regiment, my uncle _Toby_, unless when he happened to be very angry with him, would never call him by any other name.
The poor fellow had been disabled for the service, by a wound on his left knee by a musket-bullet, at the battle of _Landen_, which was two years before the affair of _Namur_; --and as the fellow was well-beloved in the regiment, and a handy fellow into the bargain, my uncle _Toby_ took him for his servant; and of an excellent use was he, attending my uncle _Toby_ in the camp and in his quarters as a valet, groom, barber, cook, sempster, and nurse; and indeed, from first to last, waited upon him and served him with great fidelity and affection.
My uncle _Toby_ loved the man in return, and what attached him more to him still, was the similitude of their knowledge. ----For Corporal _Trim_ (for so, for the future, I shall call him), by four years occasional attention to his Master’s discourse upon fortified towns, and the advantage of prying and peeping continually into his Master’s plans, &c., exclusive and besides what he gained HOBBY-HORSICALLY, as a body-servant, _Non Hobby Horsical per se_; ----had become no mean proficient in the science; and was thought, by the cook and chamber-maid, to know as much of the nature of strongholds as my uncle _Toby_ himself.
I have but one more stroke to give to finish Corporal _Trim’s_ character, ----and it is the only dark line in it. --The fellow loved to advise, --or rather to hear himself talk; his carriage, however, was so perfectly respectful, ’twas easy to keep him silent when you had him so; but set his tongue a-going, --you had no hold of him--he was voluble; --the eternal interlardings of _your Honour_, with the respectfulness of Corporal _Trim’s_ manner, interceding so strong in behalf of his elocution, --that though you might have been incommoded, ----you could not well be angry. My uncle _Toby_ was seldom either the one or the other with him, --or, at least, this fault, in _Trim_, broke no squares with them. My uncle _Toby_, as I said, loved the man; ----and besides, as he ever looked upon a faithful servant, --but as an humble friend, --he could not bear to stop his mouth. ----Such was Corporal _Trim_.
If I durst presume, continued _Trim_, to give your Honour my advice, and speak my opinion in this matter. --Thou art welcome, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_--speak, ----speak what thou thinkest upon the subject, man, without fear. Why then, replied _Trim_ (not hanging his ears and scratching his head like a country-lout, but) stroking his hair back from his forehead, and standing erect as before his division, --I think, quoth _Trim_, advancing his left, which was his lame leg, a little forwards, --and pointing with his right hand open towards a map of _Dunkirk_, which was pinned against the hangings, ----I think, quoth Corporal _Trim_, with humble submission to your Honour’s better judgment, ----that these ravelins, bastions, curtins, and horn-works, make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon paper, compared to what your Honour and I could make of it were we in the country by ourselves, and had but a rood, or a rood and a half of ground to do what we pleased with: As summer is coming on, continued _Trim_, your Honour might sit out of doors, and give me the nography--(Call it ichnography, quoth my uncle)----of the town or citadel, your Honour was pleased to sit down before, --and I will be shot by your Honour upon the glacis of it, if I did not fortify it to your Honour’s mind ----I dare say thou would’st, _Trim_, quoth my uncle. --For if your Honour, continued the Corporal, could but mark me the polygon, with its exact lines and angles --That I could do very well, quoth my uncle. --I would begin with the fossé, and if your Honour could tell me the proper depth and breadth --I can to a hair’s breadth, _Trim_, replied my uncle. --I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town for the scarp, --and on that hand towards the campaign for the counterscarp. --Very right, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_: ----And when I had sloped them to your mind, ----an’ please your Honour, I would face the glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in _Flanders_, with sods, ----and as your Honour knows they should be, --and I would make the walls and parapets with sods too. --The best engineers call them gazons, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_. ----Whether they are gazons or sods, is not much matter, replied _Trim_; your Honour knows they are ten times beyond a facing either of brick or stone. ----I know they are, _Trim_, in some respects, ----quoth my uncle _Toby_, nodding his head; --for a cannon-ball enters into the gazon right onwards, without bringing any rubbish down with it, which might fill the fossé (as was the case at _St. Nicolas’s_ gate), and facilitate the passage over it.
Your Honour understands these matters, replied Corporal _Trim_, better than any officer in his Majesty’s service; ----but would your Honour please to let the bespeaking of the table alone, and let us but go into the country, I would work under your Honour’s directions like a horse, and make fortifications for you something like a tansy, with all their batteries, saps, ditches, and palisadoes, that it should be worth all the world’s riding twenty miles to go and see it.
My uncle _Toby_ blushed as red as scarlet as _Trim_ went on; --but it was not a blush of guilt, --of modesty, --or of anger, --it was a blush of joy; --he was fired with Corporal _Trim’s_ project and description. ----_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_, thou hast said enough. --We might begin the campaign, continued _Trim_, on the very day that his Majesty and the Allies take the field, and demolish them town by town as fast as--_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, say no more. Your Honour, continued _Trim_, might sit in your arm-chair (pointing to it) this fine weather, giving me your orders, and I would ----Say no more, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_ ----Besides, your Honour would get not only pleasure and good pastime, --but good air, and good exercise, and good health, --and your Honour’s wound would be well in a month. Thou hast said enough, _Trim_, --quoth my uncle _Toby_ (putting his hand into his breeches-pocket) ----I like thy project mightily. --And if your Honour pleases, I’ll this moment go and buy a pioneer’s spade to take down with us, and I’ll bespeak a shovel and a pick-axe, and a couple of ----Say no more, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, leaping up upon one leg, quite overcome with rapture, --and thrusting a guinea into _Trim’s_ hand, --_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, say no more; --but go down, _Trim_, this moment, my lad, and bring up my supper this instant.
_Trim_ ran down and brought up his master’s supper, ----to no purpose: --_Trim’s_ plan of operation ran so in my uncle _Toby’s_ head, he could not taste it. --_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, get me to bed. --’Twas all one. --Corporal _Trim’s_ description had fired his imagination, --my uncle _Toby_ could not shut his eyes. --The more he considered it, the more bewitching the scene appeared to him; --so that, two full hours before day-light, he had come to a final determination, and had concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal _Trim’s_ decampment.
My uncle _Toby_ had a little neat country-house of his own, in the village where my father’s estate lay at _Shandy_, which had been left him by an old uncle, with a small estate of about one hundred pounds a-year. Behind this house, and contiguous to it, was a kitchen-garden of about half an acre; and at the bottom of the garden, and cut off from it by a tall yew hedge, was a bowling-green, containing just about as much ground as Corporal _Trim_ wished for; --so that as _Trim_ uttered the words, “A rood and a half of ground to do what they would with,” --this identical bowling-green instantly presented itself, and became curiously painted all at once, upon the retina of my uncle _Toby’s_ fancy; --which was the physical cause of making him change colour, or at least of heightening his blush, to that immoderate degree I spoke of.
Never did lover post down to a beloved mistress with more heat and expectation, than my uncle _Toby_ did, to enjoy this self-same thing in private; --I say in private; --for it was sheltered from the house, as I told you, by a tall yew hedge, and was covered on the other three sides, from mortal sight, by rough holly and thick-set flowering shrubs: --so that the idea of not being seen, did not a little contribute to the idea of pleasure pre-conceived in my uncle _Toby’s_ mind. --Vain thought! however thick it was planted about, ----or private soever it might seem, --to think, dear uncle _Toby_, of enjoying a thing which took up a whole rood and a half of ground, ----and not have it known!
How my uncle _Toby_ and Corporal _Trim_ managed this matter, ----with the history of their campaigns, which were no way barren of events, ----may make no uninteresting under-plot in the epitasis and working-up of this drama. --At present the scene must drop, --and change for the parlour fire-side.
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