_III_


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, partly to his bed and all of it to
his room; and in the course of his cure, which was all that time in
hand, suffered unspeakable misery.

My father at that time was just beginning business in London, and had
taken a house, and as the truest friendship and cordiality subsisted
between the two brothers, and as my father thought my Uncle Toby could
nowhere be so well nursed and taken care of as in his own house, he
assigned him the very best apartment in it. And what was a much more
sincere mark of his affection still, he would never suffer a friend or
acquaintance to step into the house, but he would take him by the hand,
and lead him upstairs to see his brother Toby, and chat an hour by his
bedside.

The history of a soldier's wound beguiles the pain of it--my uncle's
visitors at least thought so, and they would frequently turn the
discourse to that subject, and from that subject the discourse would
generally roll on to the siege itself.


_IV_