loves his men, will never do, if he can help it, because two sentinels, added the Corporal, are as good as twenty.—I have been a commanding officer myself in the Corps de Garde a hundred times, continued Trim , rising an inch higher in his figure, as he spoke,—and all the time I had the honour to serve his Majesty King William , in relieving the most considerable posts, I never left more than two in my life.⸺Very right, Trim , quoth my uncle Toby ,—but you do not consider, Trim , that the towers, in Solomon’s days, were not such things as our bastions, flanked and defended by other works;—this, Trim , was an invention since Solomon’s death; nor had they horn-works, or ravelins before the curtin, in his time;⸺or such a fossé as we make with a cuvette in the middle of it, and with covered ways and counterscarps pallisadoed along it, to guard against a Coup de main:—So that the seven men upon the tower were a party, I dare say, from the Corps de Garde , set there, not only to look out, but to defend it.—They could be no more, an’ please your Honour, than a Corporal’s Guard.—My father smiled inwardly, but not outwardly;—the subject being rather too serious, considering what had happened, to make a jest of.—So putting his pipe into his mouth, which he had just lighted,—he contented himself with ordering Trim to read on. He read on as follows:] > > “To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right and wrong:⸺The first of these will comprehend the duties of religion;—the second, those of
Table of Contents
XVII
186