Or whether - - - - - - - - Or whether——for in all such cases a
man of invention and parts may with pleasure fill a couple of pages
with suppositions——which of all these was the cause, let the curious
physiologist, or the curious any body determine——’tis certain, at
least, the corporal went on thus with his harangue.
For my own part, I declare it, that out of doors, I value not death at
all:—not this . . added the corporal, snapping his fingers,—but with an
air which no one but the corporal could have given to the sentiment.—In
battle, I value death not this . . . and let him not take me cowardly,
like poor _Joe Gibbins_, in scouring his gun.—What is he? A pull of a
trigger—a push of a bayonet an inch this way or that—makes the
difference.—Look along the line—to the right—see! _Jack_’s down!
well,—’tis worth a regiment of horse to him.—No—’tis _Dick._ Then
_Jack_’s no worse.—Never mind which,—we pass on,—in hot pursuit the
wound itself which brings him is not felt,—the best way is to stand up
to him,—the man who flies, is in ten times more danger than the man who
marches up into his jaws.—I’ve look’d him, added the corporal, an
hundred times in the face,—and know what he is.—He’s nothing,
_Obadiah_, at all in the field.—But he’s very frightful in a house,
quoth _Obadiah._——I never mind it myself, said _Jonathan_, upon a
coach-box.—It must, in my opinion, be most natural in bed, replied
_Susannah._—And could I escape him by creeping into the worst calf’s
skin that ever was made into a knapsack, I would do it there—said
_Trim_—but that is nature.
——Nature is nature, said _Jonathan._—And that is the reason, cried
_Susannah_, I so much pity my mistress.—She will never get the better
of it.—Now I pity the captain the most of any one in the family,
answered _Trim._——Madam will get ease of heart in weeping,—and the
Squire in talking about it,—but my poor master will keep it all in
silence to himself.—I shall hear him sigh in his bed for a whole month
together, as he did for lieutenant _Le Fever._ An’ please your honour,
do not sigh so piteously, I would say to him as I laid besides him. I
cannot help it, _Trim_, my master would say,—’tis so melancholy an
accident—I cannot get it off my heart.—Your honour fears not death
yourself.—I hope, _Trim_, I fear nothing, he would say, but the doing a
wrong thing.——Well, he would add, whatever betides, I will take care of
_Le Fever_’s boy.—And with that, like a quieting draught, his honour
would fall asleep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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