Now the HOBBY-HORSE which my uncle _Toby_ always rode upon, was in my opinion an HOBBY-HORSE well worth giving a description of, if it was only upon the score of his great singularity;—for you might have travelled from _York_ to _Dover_,—from _Dover_ to _Penzance_ in _Cornwall_, and from _Penzance_ to _York_ back again, and not have seen such another upon the road; or if you had seen such a one, whatever haste you had been in, you must infallibly have stopp’d to have taken a view of him. Indeed, the gait and figure of him was so strange, and so utterly unlike was he, from his head to his tail, to any one of the whole species, that it was now and then made a matter of dispute,——whether he was really a HOBBY-HORSE or no: But as the Philosopher would use no other argument to the Sceptic, who disputed with him against the reality of motion, save that of rising up upon his legs, and walking across the room;—so would my uncle _Toby_ use no other argument to prove his HOBBY-HORSE was a HOBBY-HORSE indeed, but by getting upon his back and riding him about;—leaving the world, after that, to determine the point as it thought fit. In good truth, my uncle _Toby_ mounted him with so much pleasure, and he carried my uncle _Toby_ so well,——that he troubled his head very little with what the world either said or thought about it. It is now high time, however, that I give you a description of him:—But to go on regularly, I only beg you will give me leave to acquaint you first, how my uncle _Toby_ came by him. C H A P. XXV 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.