mounted guard in the trenches before the gate of St. Nicholas;—and besides, it is so cold and rainy a night, that what with the roquelaure, and what with the weather, ’twill be enough to give your honour your death, and bring on your honour’s torment in your groin. I fear so, replied my uncle Toby; but I am not at rest in my mind, Trim, since the account the landlord has given me.—I wish I had not known so much of this affair,—added my uncle Toby,—or that I had known more of it:—How shall we manage it? Leave it, an’t please your honour, to me, quoth the corporal;—I’ll take my hat and stick and go to the house and reconnoitre, and act accordingly; and I will bring your honour a full account in an hour.—Thou shalt go, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and here’s a shilling for thee to drink with his servant.—I shall get it all out of him, said the corporal, shutting the door.

My uncle Toby filled his second pipe; and had it not been, that he now and then wandered from the point, with considering whether it was not full as well to have the curtain of the ténnaile a straight line, as a crooked one,—he might be said to have thought of nothing else but poor Le Fever and his boy the whole time he smoaked it.