<SPAN name="linkCH0126" id="linkCH0126"></SPAN>
<h2>Chapter 3.VIII.</h2>
<p>Stay—I have a small account to settle with the reader
before Trim can go on with his harangue.—It shall be done in
two minutes.</p>
<p>Amongst many other book-debts, all of which I shall discharge in
due time,—I own myself a debtor to the world for two
items,—a chapter upon chamber-maids and button-holes, which,
in the former part of my work, I promised and fully intended to pay
off this year: but some of your worships and reverences telling me,
that the two subjects, especially so connected together, might
endanger the morals of the world,—I pray the chapter upon
chamber-maids and button-holes may be forgiven me,—and that
they will accept of the last chapter in lieu of it; which is
nothing, an't please your reverences, but a chapter of
chamber-maids, green gowns, and old hats.</p>
<p>Trim took his hat off the ground,—put it upon his
head,—and then went on with his oration upon death, in manner
and form following.</p>
<SPAN name="linkCH0127" id="linkCH0127"></SPAN>
<h2>Chapter 3.IX.</h2>
<p>—To us, Jonathan, who know not what want or care
is—who live here in the service of two of the best of
masters—(bating in my own case his majesty King William the
Third, whom I had the honour to serve both in Ireland and
Flanders)—I own it, that from Whitsontide to within three
weeks of Christmas,—'tis not long—'tis like
nothing;—but to those, Jonathan, who know what death is, and
what havock and destruction he can make, before a man can well
wheel about—'tis like a whole age.—O Jonathan! 'twould
make a good-natured man's heart bleed, to consider, continued the
corporal (standing perpendicularly), how low many a brave and
upright fellow has been laid since that time!—And trust me,
Susy, added the corporal, turning to Susannah, whose eyes were
swimming in water,—before that time comes round
again,—many a bright eye will be dim.—Susannah placed
it to the right side of the page—she wept—but she
court'sied too.—Are we not, continued Trim, looking still at
Susannah—are we not like a flower of the field—a tear
of pride stole in betwixt every two tears of humiliation—else
no tongue could have described Susannah's affliction—is not
all flesh grass?—Tis clay,—'tis dirt.—They all
looked directly at the scullion,—the scullion had just been
scouring a fish-kettle.—It was not fair.—</p>
<p>—What is the finest face that ever man looked at!—I
could hear Trim talk so for ever, cried Susannah,—what is it!
(Susannah laid her hand upon Trim's shoulder)—but
corruption?—Susannah took it off.</p>
<p>Now I love you for this—and 'tis this delicious mixture
within you which makes you dear creatures what you are—and he
who hates you for it—all I can say of the matter
is—That he has either a pumpkin for his head—or a
pippin for his heart,—and whenever he is dissected 'twill be
found so.</p>
<SPAN name="linkCH0128" id="linkCH0128"></SPAN>
<h2>Chapter 3.X.</h2>
<p>Whether Susannah, by taking her hand too suddenly from off the
corporal's shoulder (by the whisking about of her
passions)—broke a little the chain of his
reflexions—</p>
<p>Or whether the corporal began to be suspicious, he had got into
the doctor's quarters, and was talking more like the chaplain than
himself—</p>
<p>Or whether...Or whether—for in all such cases a man of
invention and parts may with pleasure fill a couple of pages with
suppositions—which of all these was the cause, let the
curious physiologist, or the curious any body determine—'tis
certain, at least, the corporal went on thus with his harangue.</p>
<p>For my own part, I declare it, that out of doors, I value not
death at all:—not this...added the corporal, snapping his
fingers,—but with an air which no one but the corporal could
have given to the sentiment.—In battle, I value death not
this...and let him not take me cowardly, like poor Joe Gibbins, in
scouring his gun.—What is he? A pull of a trigger—a
push of a bayonet an inch this way or that—makes the
difference.—Look along the line—to the right—see!
Jack's down! well,—'tis worth a regiment of horse to
him.—No—'tis Dick. Then Jack's no worse.—Never
mind which,—we pass on,—in hot pursuit the wound itself
which brings him is not felt,—the best way is to stand up to
him,—the man who flies, is in ten times more danger than the
man who marches up into his jaws.—I've look'd him, added the
corporal, an hundred times in the face,—and know what he
is.—He's nothing, Obadiah, at all in the field.—But
he's very frightful in a house, quoth Obadiah.—I never mind
it myself, said Jonathan, upon a coach-box.—It must, in my
opinion, be most natural in bed, replied Susannah.—And could
I escape him by creeping into the worst calf's skin that ever was
made into a knapsack, I would do it there—said Trim—but
that is nature.</p>
<p>—Nature is nature, said Jonathan.—And that is the
reason, cried Susannah, I so much pity my mistress.—She will
never get the better of it.—Now I pity the captain the most
of any one in the family, answered Trim.—Madam will get ease
of heart in weeping,—and the Squire in talking about
it,—but my poor master will keep it all in silence to
himself.—I shall hear him sigh in his bed for a whole month
together, as he did for lieutenant Le Fever. An' please your
honour, do not sigh so piteously, I would say to him as I laid
besides him. I cannot help it, Trim, my master would
say,—'tis so melancholy an accident—I cannot get it off
my heart.—Your honour fears not death yourself.—I hope,
Trim, I fear nothing, he would say, but the doing a wrong
thing.—Well, he would add, whatever betides, I will take care
of Le Fever's boy.—And with that, like a quieting draught,
his honour would fall asleep.</p>
<p>I like to hear Trim's stories about the captain, said
Susannah.—He is a kindly-hearted gentleman, said Obadiah, as
ever lived.—Aye, and as brave a one too, said the corporal,
as ever stept before a platoon.—There never was a better
officer in the king's army,—or a better man in God's world;
for he would march up to the mouth of a cannon, though he saw the
lighted match at the very touch-hole,—and yet, for all that,
he has a heart as soft as a child for other people.—He would
not hurt a chicken.—I would sooner, quoth Jonathan, drive
such a gentleman for seven pounds a year—than some for
eight.—Thank thee, Jonathan! for thy twenty
shillings,—as much, Jonathan, said the corporal, shaking him
by the hand, as if thou hadst put the money into my own
pocket.—I would serve him to the day of my death out of love.
He is a friend and a brother to me,—and could I be sure my
poor brother Tom was dead,—continued the corporal, taking out
his handkerchief,—was I worth ten thousand pounds, I would
leave every shilling of it to the captain.—Trim could not
refrain from tears at this testamentary proof he gave of his
affection to his master.—The whole kitchen was
affected.—Do tell us the story of the poor lieutenant, said
Susannah.—With all my heart, answered the corporal.</p>
<p>Susannah, the cook, Jonathan, Obadiah, and corporal Trim, formed
a circle about the fire; and as soon as the scullion had shut the
kitchen door,—the corporal begun.</p>
<SPAN name="linkCH0129" id="linkCH0129"></SPAN>
<h2>Chapter 3.XI.</h2>
<p>I am a Turk if I had not as much forgot my mother, as if Nature
had plaistered me up, and set me down naked upon the banks of the
river Nile, without one.—Your most obedient servant,
Madam—I've cost you a great deal of trouble,—I wish it
may answer;—but you have left a crack in my back,—and
here's a great piece fallen off here before,—and what must I
do with this foot?—I shall never reach England with it.</p>
<p>For my own part, I never wonder at any thing;—and so often
has my judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it,
right or wrong,—at least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects.
For all this, I reverence truth as much as any body; and when it
has slipped us, if a man will but take me by the hand, and go
quietly and search for it, as for a thing we have both lost, and
can neither of us do well without,—I'll go to the world's end
with him:—But I hate disputes,—and therefore (bating
religious points, or such as touch society) I would almost
subscribe to any thing which does not choak me in the first
passage, rather than be drawn into one—But I cannot bear
suffocation,—and bad smells worst of all.—For which
reasons, I resolved from the beginning, That if ever the army of
martyrs was to be augmented,—or a new one raised,—I
would have no hand in it, one way or t'other.</p>
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