The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Part 34

Chapter 3.XX.

The corporal had not taken his measures so badly in this stroke of artillerys.h.i.+p, but that he might have kept the matter entirely to himself, and left Susannah to have sustained the whole weight of the attack, as she could;-true courage is not content with coming off so.-The corporal, whether as general or comptroller of the train,-'twas no matter,-had done that, without which, as he imagined, the misfortune could never have happened,-at least in Susannah's hands;-How would your honours have behaved?-He determined at once, not to take shelter behind Susannah,-but to give it; and with this resolution upon his mind, he marched upright into the parlour, to lay the whole manoeuvre before my uncle Toby.

My uncle Toby had just then been giving Yorick an account of the Battle of Steenkirk, and of the strange conduct of count Solmes in ordering the foot to halt, and the horse to march where it could not act; which was directly contrary to the king's commands, and proved the loss of the day.

There are incidents in some families so pat to the purpose of what is going to follow,-they are scarce exceeded by the invention of a dramatic writer;-I mean of ancient days.-

Trim, by the help of his fore-finger, laid flat upon the table, and the edge of his hand striking across it at right angles, made a s.h.i.+ft to tell his story so, that priests and virgins might have listened to it;-and the story being told,-the dialogue went on as follows.

Chapter 3.XXI.

-I would be picquetted to death, cried the corporal, as he concluded Susannah's story, before I would suffer the woman to come to any harm,-'twas my fault, an' please your honour,-not her's.

Corporal Trim, replied my uncle Toby, putting on his hat which lay upon the table,-if any thing can be said to be a fault, when the service absolutely requires it should be done,-'tis I certainly who deserve the blame,-you obeyed your orders.

Had count Solmes, Trim, done the same at the battle of Steenkirk, said Yorick, drolling a little upon the corporal, who had been run over by a dragoon in the retreat,-he had saved thee;-Saved! cried Trim, interrupting Yorick, and finis.h.i.+ng the sentence for him after his own fas.h.i.+on,-he had saved five battalions, an' please your reverence, every soul of them:-there was Cutt's,-continued the corporal, clapping the forefinger of his right hand upon the thumb of his left, and counting round his hand,-there was Cutt's,-Mackay's,-Angus's,-Graham's,-and Leven's, all cut to pieces;-and so had the English life-guards too, had it not been for some regiments upon the right, who marched up boldly to their relief, and received the enemy's fire in their faces, before any one of their own platoons discharged a musket,-they'll go to heaven for it,-added Trim.-Trim is right, said my uncle Toby, nodding to Yorick,-he's perfectly right. What signified his marching the horse, continued the corporal, where the ground was so strait, that the French had such a nation of hedges, and copses, and ditches, and fell'd trees laid this way and that to cover them (as they always have).-Count Solmes should have sent us,-we would have fired muzzle to muzzle with them for their lives.-There was nothing to be done for the horse:-he had his foot shot off however for his pains, continued the corporal, the very next campaign at Landen.-Poor Trim got his wound there, quoth my uncle Toby.-'Twas owing, an' please your honour, entirely to count Solmes,-had he drubbed them soundly at Steenkirk, they would not have fought us at Landen.-Possibly not,-Trim, said my uncle Toby;-though if they have the advantage of a wood, or you give them a moment's time to intrench themselves, they are a nation which will pop and pop for ever at you.-There is no way but to march coolly up to them,-receive their fire, and fall in upon them, pell-mell-Ding dong, added Trim.-Horse and foot, said my uncle Toby.-Helter Skelter, said Trim.-Right and left, cried my uncle Toby.-Blood an' ounds, shouted the corporal;-the battle raged,-Yorick drew his chair a little to one side for safety, and after a moment's pause, my uncle Toby sinking his voice a note,-resumed the discourse as follows.

Chapter 3.XXII.

King William, said my uncle Toby, addressing himself to Yorick, was so terribly provoked at count Solmes for disobeying his orders, that he would not suffer him to come into his presence for many months after.-I fear, answered Yorick, the squire will be as much provoked at the corporal, as the King at the count.-But 'twould be singularly hard in this case, continued be, if corporal Trim, who has behaved so diametrically opposite to count Solmes, should have the fate to be rewarded with the same disgrace:-too oft in this world, do things take that train.-I would spring a mine, cried my uncle Toby, rising up,-and blow up my fortifications, and my house with them, and we would perish under their ruins, ere I would stand by and see it.-Trim directed a slight,-but a grateful bow towards his master,-and so the chapter ends.

Chapter 3.XXIII.

-Then, Yorick, replied my uncle Toby, you and I will lead the way abreast,-and do you, corporal, follow a few paces behind us.-And Susannah, an' please your honour, said Trim, shall be put in the rear.-'Twas an excellent disposition,-and in this order, without either drums beating, or colours flying, they marched slowly from my uncle Toby's house to Shandy-hall.

-I wish, said Trim, as they entered the door,-instead of the sash weights, I had cut off the church spout, as I once thought to have done.-You have cut off spouts enow, replied Yorick.

Chapter 3.XXIV.

As many pictures as have been given of my father, how like him soever in different airs and att.i.tudes,-not one, or all of them, can ever help the reader to any kind of preconception of how my father would think, speak, or act, upon any untried occasion or occurrence of life.-There was that infinitude of oddities in him, and of chances along with it, by which handle he would take a thing,-it baffled, Sir, all calculations.-The truth was, his road lay so very far on one side, from that wherein most men travelled,-that every object before him presented a face and section of itself to his eye, altogether different from the plan and elevation of it seen by the rest of mankind.-In other words, 'twas a different object, and in course was differently considered:

This is the true reason, that my dear Jenny and I, as well as all the world besides us, have such eternal squabbles about nothing.-She looks at her outside,-I, at her in.... How is it possible we should agree about her value?

Chapter 3.XXV.

'Tis a point settled,-and I mention it for the comfort of Confucius, (Mr Shandy is supposed to mean..., Esq; member for...,-and not the Chinese Legislator.) who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain story-that provided he keeps along the line of his story,-he may go backwards and forwards as he will,-'tis still held to be no digression.

This being premised, I take the benefit of the act of going backwards myself.

Chapter 3.XXVI.

Fifty thousand pannier loads of devils-(not of the Archbishop of Benevento's-I mean of Rabelais's devils), with their tails chopped off by their rumps, could not have made so diabolical a scream of it, as I did-when the accident befel me: it summoned up my mother instantly into the nursery,-so that Susannah had but just time to make her escape down the back stairs, as my mother came up the fore.

Now, though I was old enough to have told the story myself,-and young enough, I hope, to have done it without malignity; yet Susannah, in pa.s.sing by the kitchen, for fear of accidents, had left it in short-hand with the cook-the cook had told it with a commentary to Jonathan, and Jonathan to Obadiah; so that by the time my father had rung the bell half a dozen times, to know what was the matter above,-was Obadiah enabled to give him a particular account of it, just as it had happened.-I thought as much, said my father, tucking up his night-gown;-and so walked up stairs.

One would imagine from this-(though for my own part I somewhat question it)-that my father, before that time, had actually wrote that remarkable character in the Tristra-paedia, which to me is the most original and entertaining one in the whole book;-and that is the chapter upon sash-windows, with a bitter Philippick at the end of it, upon the forgetfulness of chamber-maids.-I have but two reasons for thinking otherwise.

First, Had the matter been taken into consideration, before the event happened, my father certainly would have nailed up the sash window for good an' all;-which, considering with what difficulty he composed books,-he might have done with ten times less trouble, than he could have wrote the chapter: this argument I foresee holds good against his writing a chapter, even after the event; but 'tis obviated under the second reason, which I have the honour to offer to the world in support of my opinion, that my father did not write the chapter upon sash-windows and chamber-pots, at the time supposed,-and it is this.

-That, in order to render the Tristra-paedia complete,-I wrote the chapter myself.

Chapter 3.XXVII.

My father put on his spectacles-looked,-took them off,-put them into the case-all in less than a statutable minute; and without opening his lips, turned about and walked precipitately down stairs: my mother imagined he had stepped down for lint and basilicon; but seeing him return with a couple of folios under his arm, and Obadiah following him with a large reading-desk, she took it for granted 'twas an herbal, and so drew him a chair to the bedside, that he might consult upon the case at his ease.

-If it be but right done,-said my father, turning to the Section-de sede vel subjecto circ.u.mcisionis,-for he had brought up Spenser de Legibus Hebraeorum Ritualibus-and Maimonides, in order to confront and examine us altogether.-

-If it be but right done, quoth he:-only tell us, cried my mother, interrupting him, what herbs?-For that, replied my father, you must send for Dr. Slop.

My mother went down, and my father went on, reading the section as follows,

...-Very well,-said my father,...-nay, if it has that convenience-and so without stopping a moment to settle it first in his mind, whether the Jews had it from the Egyptians, or the Egyptians from the Jews,-he rose up, and rubbing his forehead two or three times across with the palm of his hand, in the manner we rub out the footsteps of care, when evil has trod lighter upon us than we foreboded,-he shut the book, and walked down stairs.-Nay, said he, mentioning the name of a different great nation upon every step as he set his foot upon it-if the Egyptians,-the Syrians,-the Phoenicians,-the Arabians,-the Cappadocians,-if the Colchi, and Troglodytes did it-if Solon and Pythagoras submitted,-what is Tristram?-Who am I, that I should fret or fume one moment about the matter?

Chapter 3.XXVIII.

Dear Yorick, said my father smiling (for Yorick had broke his rank with my uncle Toby in coming through the narrow entry, and so had stept first into the parlour)-this Tristram of ours, I find, comes very hardly by all his religious rites.-Never was the son of Jew, Christian, Turk, or Infidel initiated into them in so oblique and slovenly a manner.-But he is no worse, I trust, said Yorick.-There has been certainly, continued my father, the deuce and all to do in some part or other of the ecliptic, when this offspring of mine was formed.-That, you are a better judge of than I, replied Yorick.-Astrologers, quoth my father, know better than us both:-the trine and s.e.xtil aspects have jumped awry,-or the opposite of their ascendents have not hit it, as they should,-or the lords of the genitures (as they call them) have been at bo-peep,-or something has been wrong above, or below with us.