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Chapter 61 Though the corporal had been as good as his word in putting my uncle Tobys great ramallie-wig into pipes, yet the time was too short to produce any great effects from it: it had lain many years squeezed up in the corner of his old campaign trunk; and as bad forms are not so easy to be got the better of, and the use of candle-ends not so well understood, it was not so pliable a business as one would have wished. The corporal with cheary eye and both arms extended, had fallen back perpendicular from it a score times, to inspire it, if possible, with a better airhad Spleen given a look at it, twould have cost her ladyship a smileit curld every where but where the corporal would have it; and where a buckle or two, in his opinion, would have done it honour, he could as soon have raised the dead. Such it wasor rather such would it have seemd upon any other brow; but the sweet look of goodness which sat upon my uncle Tobys, assimilated every thing around it so sovereignly to itself, and Nature had moreover wrote Gentleman with so fair a hand in every line of his countenance, that even his tarnishd gold-laced hat and huge cockade of flimsy taffeta became him; and though not worth a button in themselves, yet the moment my uncle Toby put them on, they became serious objects, and altogether seemd to have been picked up by the hand of Science to set him off to advantage. Nothing in this world could have co-operated more powerfully towards this, than my uncle Tobys blue and goldhad not Quantity in some measure been necessary to Grace: in a period of fifteen or sixteen years since they had been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle Tobys life, for he seldom went further than the bowling-greenhis blue and gold had become so miserably too straight for him, that it was with the utmost difficulty the corporal was able to get him into them; the taking them up at the sleeves, was of no advantage.They were laced however down the back, and at the seams of the sides, &c. in the mode of King Williams reign; and to shorten all description, they shone so bright against the sun that morning, and had so metallick and doughty an air with them, that had my uncle Toby thought of attacking in armour, nothing could have so well imposed upon his imagination. As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been unrippd by the taylor between the legs, and left at sixes and sevens Yes, Madam,but let us govern our fancies. It is enough they were held impracticable the night before, and as there was no alternative in my uncle Tobys wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red plush. The corporal had arrayd himself in poor Le Fevers regimental coat; and with his hair tuckd up under his Montero-cap, which he had furbishd up for the occasion, marchd three paces distant from his master: a whiff of military pride had puffd out his shirt at the wrist; and upon that in a black leather thong clippd into a tassel beyond the knot, hung the corporals stickmy uncle Toby carried his cane like a pike. It looks well at least; quoth my father to himself. |
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