——For nothing can make this chapter go off with spirit but an apostrophe to thee——but my heart tells me, that in such a crisis an apostrophe is but an insult in disguise, and ere I would offer one to a woman in distress—let the chapter go to the devil; provided any damn’d critic in keeping will be but at the trouble to take it with him.
[ CHAPTER XXVII]
My uncle Toby’s Map is carried down into the kitchen.
[ CHAPTER XXVIII]
——And here is the Maes—and this is the Sambre; said the corporal, pointing with his right hand extended a little towards the map and his left upon Mrs. Bridget’s shoulder——but not the shoulder next him—and this, said he, is the town of Namur—and this the citadel—and there lay the French—and here lay his honour and myself——and in this cursed trench, Mrs. Bridget, quoth the corporal, taking her by the hand, did he receive the wound which crush’d him so miserably here.——In pronouncing which, he slightly press’d the back of her hand towards the part he felt for——and let it fall.
We thought, Mr. Trim, it had been more in the middle,——said Mrs. Bridget——
That would have undone us for ever—said the corporal.
——And left my poor mistress undone too, said Bridget.
The corporal made no reply to the repartee, but by giving Mrs. Bridget a kiss.
Come—come—said Bridget—holding the palm of her left hand parallel to the plane of the horizon, and sliding the fingers of the other over it, in a way which could not have been done, had there been the least wart or protuberance——’Tis every syllable of it false, cried the corporal, before she had half finished the sentence——