THOUGH my father travelled homewards, as I told you, in none of the
best of moods,—pshawing and pishing all the way down,—yet he had the
complaisance to keep the worst part of the story still to
himself;—which was the resolution he had taken of doing himself the
justice, which my uncle _Toby_’s clause in the marriage-settlement
empowered him; nor was it till the very night in which I was begot,
which was thirteen months after, that she had the least intimation of
his design: when my father, happening, as you remember, to be a little
chagrin’d and out of temper,——took occasion as they lay chatting
gravely in bed afterwards, talking over what was to come,——to let her
know that she must accommodate herself as well as she could to the
bargain made between them in their marriage-deeds; which was to lye-in
of her next child in the country, to balance the last year’s journey.
My father was a gentleman of many virtues,—but he had a strong spice of
that in his temper, which might, or might not, add to the number.—’Tis
known by the name of perseverance in a good cause,—and of obstinacy in
a bad one: Of this my mother had so much knowledge, that she knew ’twas
to no purpose to make any remonstrance,—so she e’en resolved to sit
down quietly, and make the most of it.