AS _Tom_, an’ please your honour, had no business at that time with the
_Moorish_ girl, he passed on into the room beyond, to talk to the
_Jew_’s widow about love——and this pound of sausages; and being, as I
have told your honour, an open cheary-hearted lad, with his character
wrote in his looks and carriage, he took a chair, and without much
apology, but with great civility at the same time, placed it close to
her at the table, and sat down.
There is nothing so awkward, as courting a woman, an’ please your
honour, whilst she is making sausages——So _Tom_ began a discourse upon
them; first, gravely,——“as how they were made——with what meats, herbs,
and spices.”—Then a little gayly,—as, “With what skins——and if they
never burst——Whether the largest were not the best?”—and so on—taking
care only as he went along, to season what he had to say upon sausages,
rather under than over;——that he might have room to act in——
It was owing to the neglect of that very precaution, said my uncle
_Toby_, laying his hand upon _Trim_’s shoulder, that Count _De la
Motte_ lost the battle of _Wynendale:_ he pressed too speedily into the
wood; which if he had not done, _Lisle_ had not fallen into our hands,
nor _Ghent_ and _Bruges_, which both followed her example; it was so
late in the year, continued my uncle _Toby_, and so terrible a season
came on, that if things had not fallen out as they did, our troops must
have perish’d in the open field.——
——Why, therefore, may not battles, an’ please your honour, as well as
marriages, be made in heaven?—my uncle _Toby_ mused——
Religion inclined him to say one thing, and his high idea of military
skill tempted him to say another; so not being able to frame a reply
exactly to his mind——my uncle _Toby_ said nothing at all; and the
corporal finished his story.
As _Tom_ perceived, an’ please your honour, that he gained ground, and
that all he had said upon the subject of sausages was kindly taken, he
went on to help her a little in making them.——First, by taking hold of
the ring of the sausage whilst she stroked the forced meat down with
her hand——then by cutting the strings into proper lengths, and holding
them in his hand, whilst she took them out one by one——then, by putting
them across her mouth, that she might take them out as she wanted
them——and so on from little to more, till at last he adventured to tie
the sausage himself, whilst she held the snout.——
——Now a widow, an’ please your honour, always chuses a second husband
as unlike the first as she can: so the affair was more than half
settled in her mind before _Tom_ mentioned it.
She made a feint however of defending herself, by snatching up a
sausage:——_Tom_ instantly laid hold of another——