My father was returned from his walk to the fishpond⸺and opened the parlour-door in the very height of the attack, just as my uncle Toby was marching up the glacis⸺ Trim recovered his arms⸺never was my uncle Toby caught in riding at such a desperate rate in his life! Alas! my uncle Toby! had not a weightier matter called forth all the ready eloquence of my father—how hadst thou then and thy poor Hobbyhorse too been insulted!
My father hung up his hat with the same air he took it down; and after giving a slight look at the disorder of the room, he took hold of one of the chairs which had formed the corporal’s breach, and placing it over-against my uncle Toby , he sat down in it, and as soon as the tea-things were taken away, and the door shut, he broke out in a lamentation as follows.
My Father’s Lamentation
It is in vain longer, said my father, addressing himself as much to Ernulphus’s curse, which was laid upon the corner of the chimneypiece⸺as to my uncle Toby who sat under it⸺it is in vain longer, said my father, in the most querulous monotony imaginable, to struggle as I have done against this most uncomfortable of human persuasions⸺I see it plainly, that either for my own sins, brother Toby , or the sins and follies of the Shandy family, Heaven has thought fit to draw forth the heaviest of its artillery against me; and that the prosperity of my child is the point upon which the whole force of it is directed to play.⸻Such a thing would batter the whole universe about our ears, brother Shandy , said my uncle Toby —if it was so—Unhappy Tristram : child of wrath! child of decrepitude! interruption! mistake!