their heirs, executors, and assigns, in their actual possession now being, by virtue of an indenture of bargain and sale for a year to them the said John Dixon, and James Turner, Esqrs.

by him the said Walter Shandy, merchant, thereof made; which said bargain and sale for a year, bears date the day next before the date of these presents, and by force and virtue of the statute for transferring of uses into possession,--All that the manor and lordship of Shandy, in the county of..., with all the rights, members, and appurtenances thereof; and all and every the messuages, houses, buildings, barns, stables, orchards, gardens, backsides, tofts, crofts, garths, cottages, lands, meadows, feedings, pastures, marshes, commons, woods, underwoods, drains, fisheries, waters, and water-courses;--together with all rents, reversions, services, annuities, fee-farms, knights fees, views of frankpledge, escheats, reliefs, mines, quarries, goods and chattels of felons and fugitives, felons of themselves, and put in exigent, deodands, free warrens, and all other royalties and seigniories, rights and jurisdictions, privileges and hereditaments whatsoever .-- And also the advowson, donation, presentation, and free disposition of the rectory or parsonage of Shandy aforesaid, and all and every the tenths, tythes, glebe-lands.'-- In three words,--'My mother was to lay in (if she chose it) in London.' But in order to put a stop to the practice of any unfair play on the part of my mother, which a marriage-article of this nature too manifestly opened a door to, and which indeed had never been thought of at all, but for my uncle Toby Shandy;--a clause was added in security of my father which was this:--'That in case my mother hereafter should, at any time, put my father to the trouble and expence of a London journey, upon false cries and tokens;--that for every such instance, she should forfeit all the right and title which the covenant gave her to the next turn;--but to no more,--and so on, toties quoties, in as effectual a manner, as if such a covenant betwixt them had not been made.'-- This, by the way, was no more than what was reasonable;--and yet, as reasonable as it was, I have ever thought it hard that the whole weight of the article should have fallen entirely, as it did, upon myself.
But I was begot and born to misfortunes;--for my poor mother, whether it was wind or water--or a compound of both,--or neither;--or whether it was simply the mere swell of imagination and fancy in her;--or how far a strong wish and desire to have it so, might mislead her judgment;--in short, whether she was deceived or deceiving in this matter, it no way becomes me to decide.

The fact was this, That in the latter end of September 1717, which was the year before I was born, my mother having carried my father up to town much against the grain,--he peremptorily insisted upon the clause;--so that I was doom'd, by marriage-articles, to have my nose squeez'd as flat to my face, as if the destinies had actually spun me without one.
How this event came about,--and what a train of vexatious disappointments, in one stage or other of my life, have pursued me from the mere loss, or rather compression, of this one single member,--shall be laid before the reader all in due time..