The Expedition of Humphry ClinkerSmollett, T. (Tobias)
General
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
Smollett, T. (Tobias)
Epistolary fiction; Great Britain -- Fiction; Travelers -- Fiction
parson of the parish, and nothing passed but spiritual communication.
After all these miscarriages, our aunt suddenly recollected lieutenant
Lismahago, whom, ever since our first arrival at Edinburgh, she seemed
to have utterly forgot; but now she expressed her hopes of seeing him at
Dumfries, according to his promise.
We set out from Glasgow by the way of Lanerk, the county-town of
Clydesdale, in the neighbourhood of which, the whole river Clyde,
rushing down a steep rock, forms a very noble and stupendous cascade.
Next day we were obliged to halt in a small borough, until the carriage,
which had received some damage, should be repaired; and here we met
with an incident which warmly interested the benevolent spirit of Mr
Bramble--As we stood at the window of an inn that fronted the public
prison, a person arrived on horseback, genteelly, tho’ plainly, dressed
in a blue frock, with his own hair cut short, and a gold-laced hat upon
his head.--Alighting, and giving his horse to the landlord, he advanced
to an old man who was at work in paving the street, and accosted him in
these words: ‘This is hard work for such an old man as you.’--So
saying, he took the instrument out of his hand, and began to thump the
pavement.--After a few strokes, ‘Have you never a son (said he) to ease
you of this labour?’ ‘Yes, an please Your honour (replied the senior),
I have three hopeful lads, but, at present, they are out of the way.’
‘Honour not me (cried the stranger); but more becomes me to honour your
grey hairs. Where are those sons you talk of?’ The ancient paviour said,
his eldest son was a captain in the East Indies; and the youngest had
lately inlisted as a soldier, in hopes of prospering like his brother.
The gentleman desiring to know what was become of the second, he wiped
his eyes, and owned, he had taken upon him his old father’s debts, for
which he was now in the prison hard by.
The traveller made three quick steps towards the jail, then turning
short, ‘Tell me (said he), has that unnatural captain sent you nothing
to relieve your distress?’ ‘Call him not unnatural (replied the other);
God’s blessing be upon him! he sent me a great deal of money; but I made
a bad use of it; I lost it by being security for a gentleman that was
my landlord, and was stript of all I had in the world besides.’ At that
instant a young man, thrusting out his head and neck between two iron
bars in the prison-window, exclaimed, ‘Father! father! if my brother
William is in life, that’s he!’ ‘I am!--I am!--(cried the stranger,
clasping the old man in his arms, and shedding a flood of tears)--I
am your son Willy, sure enough!’ Before the father, who was quite
confounded, could make any return to this tenderness, a decent old woman
bolting out from the door of a poor habitation, cried, ‘Where is my
bairn? where is my dear Willy?’--The captain no sooner beheld her, than
he quitted his father, and ran into her embrace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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