Chapter 4.LXII.
My uncle Toby turn'd his head more than once behind him, to see how he was supported by the corporal; and the corporal as oft as he did it, gave a slight flourish with his stick—but not vapouringly; and with the sweetest accent of most respectful encouragement, bid his honour 'never fear.'
Now my uncle Toby did fear; and grievously too; he knew not (as my father had reproach'd him) so much as the right end of a Woman from the wrong, and therefore was never altogether at his ease near any one of them—unless in sorrow or distress; then infinite was his pity; nor would the most courteous knight of romance have gone further, at least upon one leg, to have wiped away a tear from a woman's eye; and yet excepting once that he was beguiled into it by Mrs. Wadman, he had never looked stedfastly into one; and would often tell my father in the simplicity of his heart, that it was almost (if not about) as bad as taking bawdy.—
—And suppose it is? my father would say.
Chapter 4.LXIII.
She cannot, quoth my uncle Toby, halting, when they had march'd up to within twenty paces of Mrs. Wadman's door—she cannot, corporal, take it amiss.—
—She will take it, an' please your honour, said the corporal, just as the Jew's widow at Lisbon took it of my brother Tom.—
—And how was that? quoth my uncle Toby, facing quite about to the corporal.
Your honour, replied the corporal, knows of Tom's misfortunes; but this affair has nothing to do with them any further than this, That if Tom had not married the widow—or had it pleased God after their marriage, that they had but put pork into their sausages, the honest soul had never been taken out of his warm bed, and dragg'd to the inquisition—'Tis a cursed place—added the corporal, shaking his head,—when once a poor creature is in, he is in, an' please your honour, for ever.
'Tis very true; said my uncle Toby, looking gravely at Mrs. Wadman's house, as he spoke.
Nothing, continued the corporal, can be so sad as confinement for life—or so sweet, an' please your honour, as liberty.
Nothing, Trim—said my uncle Toby, musing—
Whilst a man is free,—cried the corporal, giving a flourish with his stick thus—
(squiggly line diagonally across the page)
A thousand of my father's most subtle syllogisms could not have said more for celibacy.
My uncle Toby look'd earnestly towards his cottage and his bowling-green.
The corporal had unwarily conjured up the Spirit of calculation with his wand; and he had nothing to do, but to conjure him down again with his story, and in this form of Exorcism, most un-ecclesiastically did the corporal do it.
Chapter 4.LXIV.
As Tom's place, an' please your honour, was easy—and the weather warm—it put him upon thinking seriously of settling himself in the world; and as it fell out about that time, that a Jew who kept a sausage shop in the same street, had the ill luck to die of a strangury, and leave his widow in possession of a rousing trade—Tom thought (as every body in Lisbon was doing the best he could devise for himself) there could be no harm in offering her his service to carry it on: so without any introduction to the widow, except that of buying a pound of sausages
