XXV
The wound in my uncle TobyвАЩs groin, which he received at the siege of Namur, rendering him unfit for the service, it was thought expedient he should return to England, in order, if possible, to be set to rights.
He was four years totally confined,вБ†вАФpart of it to his bed, and all of it to his room: and in the course of his cure, which was all that time in hand, sufferвАЩd unspeakable miseries,вБ†вАФowing to a succession of exfoliations from the os pubis, and the outward edge of that part of the coxendix called the os illium,вБ†вЄЇвБ†both which bones were dismally crushвАЩd, as much by the irregularity of the stone, which I told you was broke off the parapet,вБ†вАФas by its size,вБ†вАФ(though it was pretty large) which inclined the surgeon all along to think, that the great injury which it had done my uncle TobyвАЩs groin, was more owing to the gravity of the stone itself, than to the projectile force of it,вБ†вАФwhich he would often tell him was a great happiness.
My father at that time was just beginning business in London, and had taken a house;вБ†вАФand as the truest friendship and cordiality subsisted between the two brothers,вБ†вАФand that my father thought my uncle Toby could no where be so well nursed and taken care of as in his own house,вБ†вЄЇвБ†he assignвАЩd him the very best apartment in it.вБ†вАФAnd what was a much more sincere mark of his affection still, he would never suffer a friend or an acquaintance to step into the house on any occasion, but he would take him by the hand, and lead him upstairs to see his brother Toby, and chat an hour by his bedside.
The history of a soldierвАЩs wound beguiles the pain of it;вБ†вАФmy uncleвАЩs visitors at least thought so, and in their daily calls upon him, from the courtesy arising out of that belief, they would frequently turn the discourse to that subject,вБ†вАФand from that subject the discourse would generally roll on to the siege itself.
These conversations were infinitely kind; and my uncle Toby received great relief from them, and would have received much more, but that they brought him into some unforeseen perplexities, which, for three months together, retarded his cure greatly; and if he had not hit upon an expedient to extricate himself out of them, I verily believe they would have laid him in his grave.
What these perplexities of my uncle Toby were,вБ†вЄЇвАЩtis impossible for you to guess;вБ†вАФif you could,вБ†вАФI should blush; not as a relation,вБ†вАФnot as a man,вБ†вАФnor even as a woman,вБ†вАФbut I should blush as an author; inasmuch as I set no small store by myself upon this very account, that my reader has never yet been able to guess at anything. And in this, Sir, I am of so nice and singular a humour, that if I thought you was able to form the least judgment or probable conjecture to yourself, of what was to come in the next page,вБ†вАФI would tear it out of my book.