THE wound in my uncle _Toby_’s 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,—part 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, suffer’d unspeakable miseries,—owing to a succession of
exfoliations from the _os pubis_, and the outward edge of that part of
the _coxendix_ called the _os illium_,——both which bones were dismally
crush’d, as much by the irregularity of the stone, which I told you was
broke off the parapet,—as by its size,—(tho’ it was pretty large) which
inclined the surgeon all along to think, that the great injury which it
had done my uncle _Toby_’s groin, was more owing to the gravity of the
stone itself, than to the projectile force of it,—which 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;—and as the truest friendship and cordiality subsisted
between the two brothers,—and that my father thought my uncle _Toby_
could no where be so well nursed and taken care of as in his own
house,——he assign’d him the very best apartment in it.—And 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 up stairs to see his
brother _Toby_, and chat an hour by his bed-side.
The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it;—my uncle’s
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,—and 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,——’tis impossible for
you to guess;—if you could,—I should blush; not as a relation,—not as a
man,—nor even as a woman,—but 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 any thing. 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,—I would tear it out of my book.