CHAPTER XXXII

There will be just time, whilst my uncle _Toby_ and _Trim_ are walking to my father’s, to inform you that Mrs. _Wadman_ had, some moons before this, made a confident of my mother; and that Mrs. _Bridget_, who had the burden of her own, as well as her mistress’s secret to carry, had got happily delivered of both to _Susannah_ behind the garden-wall.

As for my mother, she saw nothing at all in it, to make the least bustle about----but _Susannah_ was sufficient by herself for all the ends and purposes you could possibly have, in exporting a family secret; for she instantly imparted it by signs to _Jonathan_----and _Jonathan_ by tokens to the cook as she was basting a loin of mutton; the cook sold it with some kitchen-fat to the postillion for a groat, who truck’d it with the dairy maid for something of about the same value----and though whisper’d in the hay-loft, FAME caught the notes with her brazen trumpet, and sounded them upon the house-top --In a word, not an old woman in the village or five miles round, who did not understand the difficulties of my uncle _Toby’s_ siege, and what were the secret articles which had delayed the surrender.----

My father, whose way was to force every event in nature into an hypothesis, by which means never man crucified TRUTH at the rate he did----had but just heard of the report as my uncle _Toby_ set out; and catching fire suddenly at the trespass done his brother by it, was demonstrating to _Yorick_, notwithstanding my mother was sitting by----not only, “That the devil was in women, and that the whole of the affair was lust;” but that every evil and disorder in the world, of what kind or nature soever, from the first fall of _Adam_, down to my uncle _Toby’s_ (inclusive), was owing one way or other to the same unruly appetite.

_Yorick_ was just bringing my father’s hypothesis to some temper, when my uncle _Toby_ entering the room with marks of infinite benevolence and forgiveness in his looks, my father’s eloquence rekindled against the passion----and as he was not very nice in the choice of his words when he was wroth----as soon as my uncle _Toby_ was seated by the fire, and had filled his pipe, my father broke out in this manner.

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