Walter accuses his wife of prurience, then wonders whether he is perhaps being unjust to her. Strolling along, he glances into her eye and sees "a thousand reasons to wipe out the reproach." Her eye was a "blue, chill, pellucid chrystal with all its humours so at rest, the least mote or speck of desire might have been seen at the bottom of it, had it existed — it did not." Tristram wonders how he came by his lewdness, which he feels "particularly a little before the vernal and autumnal equinoxes."
Corporal Trim hasn't been able to do much with Uncle Toby's old wig and uniform; they remain quite shabby and worn. Still, Toby's nature is so obviously that of a gentleman, that "even his tarnish'd gold-laced hat and huge cockade of flimsy taffeta became him; and though not worth a button in themselves, yet the moment my uncle Toby put them on, they became serious objects." He must wear the red plush breeches after all, since the thinner ones couldn't be turned again by the tailor.
On their way to the offensive, "my uncle Toby turn'd his head more than once behind him, to see how he was supported by the Corporal." Trim waves his stick in encouragement, as if to "bid his honour 'never fear.'" But, says Tristram, "my uncle Toby did fear." He halts "within twenty paces of Mrs. Wadman's door" and says " — she cannot, Corporal, take it amiss." Trim assures him that "she will take it, an' please your honour . . . just as the Jew's widow at Lisbon took it of my brother Tom." Toby doesn't know the story, and Trim points out merely that Tom ended up in the clutches of the Inquisition: "'Tis a cursed place . . . when once a poor creature is in, he is in, an' please your honour, for ever." "'Tis very true; said my uncle Toby looking gravely at Mrs. Wadman's house, as he spoke." When Trim adds, "Nothing . . . can be so sad as confinement for life — or so sweet . . . as liberty," Toby answers musingly, "Nothing, Trim."
