midnight
-- With all pleasure , said the corporal , making a bow . I had escaped , continued the corporal , all that time from falling in love , and had gone on to the end of the chapter , had it not been predestined otherwise -- there is no resisting our fate . It was on a _ Sunday _ , in the afternoon , as I told your honour . The old man and his wife had walked out -- Everything was still and hush as midnight about the house -- There was not so much as a duck or a duckling about the yard -- -- When the fair _ Beguine _ came in to see me . My wound was then in a fair way of doing well -- the inflammation had been gone off for some time , but it was succeeded with an itching both above and below my knee , so insufferable , that I had not shut my eyes the whole night for it . Let me see it , said she , kneeling down upon the ground parallel to my knee , and laying her hand upon the part below it -- it only wants rubbing a little , said the _ Beguine _ ; so covering it with the bed-clothes , she began with the forefinger of her right hand to rub under my knee , guiding her forefinger backwards and forwards by the edge of the _ flannel _ which kept on the dressing . In five or six minutes I felt slightly the end of her second finger -- and presently it was laid flat with the other , and she continued rubbing in that way round and round for a good while ; it then came into my head , that I should fall in love -- I blush 'd when I saw how white a hand she had -- I shall never , an ' please your honour , behold another hand so white whilst I live -- -- Not in that place ; said my uncle _ Toby _ -- Though it was the most serious despair in nature to the corporal -- he could not forbear smiling .