which shall be given in its proper place, my uncle Toby , honest man! found it necessary to draw off his forces and raise the siege somewhat indignantly.
Corporal Trim , as I said, had made no such bargain either with himself⸺or with anyone else⸺the fidelity however of his heart not suffering him to go into a house which his master had forsaken with disgust⸺he contented himself with turning his part of the siege into a blockade;—that is, he kept others off;—for though he never after went to the house, yet he never met Bridget in the village, but he would either nod or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her—or (as circumstances directed) he would shake her by the hand—or ask her lovingly how she did—or would give her a ribbon—and now-and-then, though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give Bridget a—
Precisely in this situation, did these things stand for five years; that is, from the demolition of Dunkirk in the year 13, to the latter end of my uncle Toby’s campaign in the year 18, which was about six or seven weeks before the time I’m speaking of.⸺When Trim , as his custom was, after he had put my uncle Toby to bed, going down one moonshiny night to see that everything was right at his fortifications⸺in the lane separated from the bowling-green with flowering shrubs and holly—he espied his Bridget .
As the corporal thought there was nothing in the world so well worth showing as the glorious works which he and my uncle Toby had made, Trim courteously and gallantly took her by the hand, and led her in: this was not done so privately, but that the foul-mouth’d trumpet of Fame carried it from ear to ear, till at length it reach’d my father’s, with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my uncle Toby’s curious drawbridge, constructed and painted after the Dutch fashion, and which went quite across the ditch—was broke down, and somehow or other crushed all to pieces that very night.