and that windlass at that shaft's mouth
belongs in part to Thomas Thurnall.

At the windlass are standing two men, whom we may have seen in
past years, self-satisfied in countenance, and spotless in array,
sauntering down Piccadilly any July afternoon, or lounging in Haggis's
stable-yard at Cambridge any autumn morning. Alas! how changed from
the fast young undergraduates, with powers of enjoyment only equalled
by their powers of running into debt, are those two black-bearded and
mud-bespattered ruffians, who once were Smith and Brown of Trinity.
Yet who need pity them, as long as they have stouter limbs, healthier
stomachs, and clearer consciences, than they have had since they left
Eton at seventeen? Would Smith have been a happier man as a briefless
barrister in a dingy Inn of Law, peeping now and then into third-rate
London society, and scribbling for the daily press! Would Brown have
been a happier man had he been forced into those holy orders for which
he never felt the least vocation, to pay off his college debts out
of his curate's income, and settle down on his lees, at last, in the
family living of Nomansland-cum-Clayhole, and support a wife and five
children on five hundred a-year, exclusive of rates and taxes? Let
them dig, and be men.

The windlass rattles and the rope goes down. A shout from the bottom
of the shaft proclaims all right; and in due time, sitting in
the noose of the rope, up comes Thomas Thurnall, bare-footed and
bare-headed, in flannel trousers and red jersey, begrimed with slush
and mud; with a mahogany face, a brick-red neck, and a huge brown
beard, looking, to use his own expression, "as jolly as a sandboy."

"A letter for you, Doctor, from Europe."

Tom takes it, and his countenance falls; for it is black-edged and
black-sealed. The handwriting is Mary Armsworth's.

"I suppose the old lady who is going to leave me a fortune is dead,"
says he drily, and turns away to read.

"Bad luck, I suppose," he says to himself, "I have not had any for
full six months, so I suppose it is time for Dame Fortune to give me
a sly stab again. I only hope it is not my father; for, begging the
Dame's pardon, I can bear any trick of hers but that." And he sets his
teeth doggedly, and reads.

"My dear Mr. Thurnall,--My father would have written himself, but he
thought, I don't know why, that I could tell you better than he. Your
father is quite well in health,"--Thurnall breathes freely again--"but
he