first water sparkled in my uncle Toby's eye, and
another, the fellow to it, in the corporal's, as the proposition was
made;--you will see why when you read Le Fever's story:--fool that I
was! nor can I recollect (nor perhaps you) without turning back to the
place, what it was that hindered me from letting the corporal tell it in
his own words;--but the occasion is lost,--I must tell it now in my own.

Chapter 3.XLIX.

The Story of Le Fever.

It was some time in the summer of that year in which Dendermond was
taken by the allies,--which was about seven years before my father came
into the country,--and about as many, after the time, that my uncle Toby
and Trim had privately decamped from my father's house in town, in order
to lay some of the finest sieges to some of the finest fortified cities
in Europe--when my uncle Toby was one evening getting his supper, with
Trim sitting behind him at a small sideboard,--I say, sitting--for in
consideration of the corporal's lame knee (which sometimes gave him
exquisite pain)--when my uncle Toby dined or supped alone, he would
never suffer the corporal to stand; and the poor fellow's veneration for
his master was such, that, with a proper artillery, my uncle Toby could
have taken Dendermond itself, with less trouble than he was able to gain
this point over him; for many a time when my uncle Toby supposed the
corporal's leg was at rest, he would look back, and detect him standing
behind him with the most dutiful respect: this bred more little
squabbles betwixt them, than all other causes for five-and-twenty years
together--But this is neither here nor there--why do I mention it?--Ask
my pen,--it governs me,--I govern not it.

He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the landlord of a
little inn in the village came into the parlour, with an empty phial in
his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack; 'Tis for a poor gentleman,--I
think, of the army, said the landlord, who has been taken ill at my
house four days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a
desire to taste any thing, till just now, that he has a fancy for a
glass of sack and a thin toast,--I think, says he, taking his hand from
his forehead, it would comfort me.--

--If I could neither beg, borrow, or buy such a thing--added the
landlord,--I would almost steal it for the poor gentleman, he is so
ill.--I hope in God he will still mend, continued he,--we are all of us
concerned for him.

Thou art