The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

318 TOBIAS SMOLLETT
Twyford, an please your honour, heretofore barkeeper at the Angel
at Chippenham.’—‘And why were not these tokens produced
before?’ ‘My mother told me she had wrote to Glamorganshire, at
the time of my birth, but had no answer; and that afterwards, when
she made enquiry, there was no such person in that county.’ ‘And
so in consequence of my changing my name and going abroad at
that very time, thy poor mother and thou have been left to want
and misery—I am really shocked at the consequence of my own
folly.’—Then, laying his hand on Clinker’s head, he added, ‘Stand
forth, Matthew Loyd—You see, gentlemen, how the sins of my
youth rise up in judgment against me—Here is my direction
written with my own hand, and a seal which I left at the woman’s
request; and this is a certificate of the child’s baptism, signed by
the curate of the parish.’ The company were not a little surprised
at this discovery, upon which Mr. Dennison facetiously con-
gratulated both the father and the son: for my part, I shook my
new-found cousin heartily by the hand, and Lismahago com-
plimented him with the tears in his eyes, for he had been hopping
about the room, swearing in broad Scotch, and bellowing with the
pain occasioned by the fall of the coal-scuttle upon his foot. He
had even vowed to drive the saul out of the body of that mad rascal:
but, perceiving the unexpected turn which things had taken, he
wished him joy of his good fortune, observing that it went very
near his heart, as he was like to be a great toe out of pocket by the
discovery—Mr. Dennison now desired to know for what reason
my uncle had changed the name by which he knew him at Oxford,
and our ’squire satisfied him, by answering to this effect.—‘I took
my mother’s name, which was Loyd, as heir to her lands in
Glamorganshire; but, when I came of age, I sold that property, in
order to clear my paternal estate, and resumed my real name; so that
I am now Matthew Bramble, of Brambleton-hall in Monmouth-
shire, at your service; and this is my nephew, Jeremy Melford of
Belfield, in the county of Glamorgan.’ At that instant the ladies
entering the room, he presented Mrs. Tabitha as his sister, and,
Liddy as his niece. The old gentleman saluted them very cordially,
and seemed struck with the appearance of my sister, whom he could
not help surveying with a mixture of complacency and surprize—
‘Sister, (said my uncle) there is a poor relation that recommends
himself to your good graces—The quondam Humphry Clinker is
metamorphosed into Matthew Loyd; and claims the honour of