Page:The Garden of Romance - 1897.djvu/128

116 for there was a book laid upon the chair by his bed-side, and, as I shut the door, I saw his son take up a cushion.'

"'I thought,' said the Curate, 'that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers at all.' 'I heard the poor gentleman say his prayers last night,' said the landlady, 'very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could not have believed it.' 'Are you sure of it?' replied the Curate. 'A soldier, an' please your reverence,' said I, 'prays as often (of his own accord) as a parson; and when he is fighting for his king, and for his own life, and for his honour too, he has the most reason to pray to God of any one in the whole world.' "'Twas well said of thee, Trim," said my uncle Toby." 'But when a soldier,' said I, 'an' please your reverence, has been standing for twelve hours together in the trenches, up to his knees in cold water, or engaged,' said I, 'for months together in long and dangerous marches; harassed, perhaps, in his rear to-day; harassing others to-morrow; detached here, countermanded there; resting this night out upon his arms, beat up in his shirt the next; benumbed in his joints; perhaps without straw in his tent to kneel on; must say his prayers how and when he can—I believe,' said I, for I was piqued, quoth the Corporal, for the reputation of the army—'I believe, an' please your reverence,' said I, 'that when a soldier gets time to pray, he prays as heartily as a parson, though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy.' "Thou should'st not have said that, Trim," said my uncle Toby, "for God only knows who is a hypocrite, and who is not. At the great and general review of us all, Corporal, at the day of judgment (and not till then), it will be seen who