What rendered the account of this affair the more intricate to my uncle _Toby_, was this, --that in the attack of the counterscarp, before the gate of _St. Nicolas_, extending itself from the bank of the _Maes_, quite up to the great water-stop, --the ground was cut and cross cut with such a multitude of dykes, drains, rivulets, and sluices, on all sides, --and he would get so sadly bewildered, and set fast amongst them, that frequently he could neither get backwards or forwards to save his life; and was oft-times obliged to give up the attack upon that very account only. These perplexing rebuffs gave my uncle _Toby Shandy_ more perturbations than you would imagine: and as my father’s kindness to him was continually dragging up fresh friends and fresh enquirers, ----he had but a very uneasy task of it. No doubt my uncle _Toby_ had great command of himself, could guard appearances, I believe, as well as most men; --yet any one may imagine, that when he could not retreat out of the ravelin without getting into the half-moon, or get out of the covered-way without falling down the counterscarp, nor cross the dyke without danger of slipping into the ditch, but that he must have fretted and fumed inwardly: --He did so; and the little and hourly vexations, which may seem trifling and of no account to the man who has not read _Hippocrates_, yet, whoever has read _Hippocrates_, or Dr. _James Mackenzie_, and has considered well the effects which the passions and affections of the mind have upon the digestion--(Why not of a wound as well as of a dinner?)--may easily conceive what sharp paroxysms and exacerbations of his wound my uncle _Toby_ must have undergone upon that score only. --My uncle _Toby_ could not philosophize upon it; --’twas enough he felt it was so, --and having sustained the pain and sorrows of it for three months together, he was resolved some way or other to extricate himself. He was one morning lying upon his back in his bed, the anguish and nature of the wound upon his groin suffering him to lie in no other position, when a thought came into his head, that if he could purchase such a thing, and have it pasted down upon a board, as a large map of the fortification of the town and citadel of _Namur_, with its environs, it might be a means of giving him ease. --I take notice of his desire to have the environs along with the town and citadel, for this reason, --because my uncle _Toby’s_ wound was got in one of the traverses, about thirty toises from the returning angle of the trench, opposite to the salient angle of the demi-bastion of _St. Roch_: ----so that he was pretty confident he could stick a pin upon the identical spot of ground where he was standing on when the stone struck him. All this succeeded to his wishes, and not only freed him from a world of sad explanations, but, in the end, it proved the happy means, as you will read, of procuring my uncle _Toby_ his HOBBY-HORSE. CHAPTER II