CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THOUGH my father travelled homewards, as I told you, in
none of the best of moods,-pshawing and pishing all the
way down,-yet he had the complaisance to keep the worst
part of the story still to himself;-which was the resolution
he had taken of doing himself the justice, which my uncle
Toby's clause in the marriage settlement empowered him;
nor was it till the very night in which I was begot, which
was thirteen months after, that she had the least intimation
of his design; when my father, happening, as you remem-
ber, to be a little chagrined and out of temper,-- took occa-
sion as they lay chatting gravely in bed afterwards, talking
over what was to come to let her know that she must
accommodate herself as well as she could to the bargain
made between them in their marriage deeds; which was to
lie-in of her next child in the country to balance the last
year's journey.
My father was a gentleman of many virtues,-but he had
a strong spice of that in his temper, which might, or might
not, add to the number.-Tis known by the name of per-
severance in a good causer-and of obstinacy in a bad one:
Of this my mother had so much knowledge, that she knew
'twas to no purpose to make any remonstrance,-so she e'en
resolved to sit down quietly, and make the most of it.