I THINK, an’ please your honour, quoth _Trim_, the fortifications are
quite destroyed——and the bason is upon a level with the mole——I think
so too; replied my uncle _Toby_ with a sigh half suppress’d——but step
into the parlour, _Trim_, for the stipulation——it lies upon the table.
It has lain there these six weeks, replied the corporal, till this very
morning that the old woman kindled the fire with it—
——Then, said my uncle _Toby_, there is no further occasion for our
services. The more, an’ please your honour, the pity, said the
corporal; in uttering which he cast his spade into the wheel-barrow,
which was beside him, with an air the most expressive of disconsolation
that can be imagined, and was heavily turning about to look for his
pickax, his pioneer’s shovel, his picquets, and other little military
stores, in order to carry them off the field——when a heigh-ho! from the
sentry-box, which being made of thin slit deal, reverberated the sound
more sorrowfully to his ear, forbad him.
——No; said the corporal to himself, I’ll do it before his honour rises
to-morrow morning; so taking his spade out of the wheel-barrow again,
with a little earth in it, as if to level something at the foot of the
glacis——but with a real intent to approach nearer to his master, in
order to divert him——he loosen’d a sod or two——pared their edges with
his spade, and having given them a gentle blow or two with the back of
it, he sat himself down close by my uncle _Toby_’s feet and began as
follows.