ankness in my uncle Toby,--not the effect of
familiarity,--but the cause of it,--which let you at once into his soul,
and shewed you the goodness of his nature; to this there was something
in his looks, and voice, and manner, superadded, which eternally
beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him, so that
before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to
the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and
had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it towards
him.--The blood and spirits of Le Fever, which were waxing cold and
slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the
heart--rallied back,--the film forsook his eyes for a moment,--he
looked up wishfully in my uncle Toby's face,--then cast a look upon his
boy,--and that ligament, fine as it was,--was never broken.--

Nature instantly ebb'd again,--the film returned to its
place,--the pulse fluttered--stopp'd--went on--throbb'd--stopp'd
again--moved--stopp'd--shall I go on?--No.

Chapter 3.LIV.

I am so impatient to return to my own story, that what remains of young
Le Fever's, that is, from this turn of his fortune, to the time my uncle
Toby recommended him for my preceptor, shall be told in a very few words
in the next chapter.--All that is necessary to be added to this chapter
is as follows.--

That my uncle Toby, with young Le Fever in his hand, attended the poor
lieutenant, as chief mourners, to his grave.

That the governor of Dendermond paid his obsequies all military
honours,--and that Yorick, not to be behind-hand--paid him all
ecclesiastic--for he buried him in his chancel:--And it appears
likewise, he preached a funeral sermon over him--I say it appears,--for
it was Yorick's custom, which I suppose a general one with those of
his profession, on the first leaf of every sermon which he composed,
to chronicle down the time, the place, and the occasion of its being
preached: to this, he was ever wont to add some short comment
or stricture upon the sermon itself, seldom, indeed, much to its
credit:--For instance, This sermon upon the Jewish dispensation--I
don't like it at all;--Though I own there is a world of Water-Landish
knowledge in it;--but 'tis all tritical, and most tritically put
together.--This is but a flimsy kind of a composition; what was in my
head when I made it?

--N.B. The excellency of this text is, that it will suit any
sermon,--and of this ser