dragoons, "if it's ghosts you want, you shall have a whole regiment of
them. And since these gentlemen have been giving the adventures of
their uncles and aunts, faith and I'll e'en give you a chapter too, out
of my own family history."




THE BOLD DRAGOON;

OR THE ADVENTURE OF MY GRANDFATHER.


My grandfather was a bold dragoon, for it's a profession, d'ye see,
that has run in the family. All my forefathers have been dragoons and
died upon the field of honor except myself, and I hope my posterity may
be able to say the same; however, I don't mean to be vainglorious.
Well, my grandfather, as I said, was a bold dragoon, and had served in
the Low Countries. In fact, he was one of that very army, which,
according to my uncle Toby, "swore so terribly in Flanders." He could
swear a good stick himself; and, moreover, was the very man that
introduced the doctrine Corporal Trim mentions, of radical heat and
radical moisture; or, in other words, the mode of keeping out the damps
of ditch water by burnt brandy. Be that as it may, it's nothing to the
purport of my story. I only tell it to show you that my grandfather was
a man not easily to be humbugged. He had seen service; or, according to
his own phrase, "he had seen the devil"--and that's saying everything.

Well, gentlemen, my grandfather was on his way to England, for which he
intended to embark at Ostend;--bad luck to the place for one where I