Meanwhile let Mark or Mary write
and tell me how you are--and for sending you every penny I can spare,
trust me. I have not had all the luck I expected; but am as hearty as
a bull, and as merry as a cricket, and fall on my legs, as of old,
like a cat. I long to come to you; but I mustn't yet. It is near three
years since I had a sight of that blessed white head, which is the
only thing I care for under the sun, except Mark and little Mary--big
Mary I suppose she is now, and engaged to be married to some 'bloated
aristocrat.' Best remembrances to old Mark Armsworth.
"Your affectionate son,
"T.T."
"Mr. Heale," said Tom next, "are we Whigs or Tories here?"
"Why--ahem, sir, my Lord Scoutbush, who owns most hereabouts, and my
Lord Minchampstead, who has bought Carcarrow moors above,--very old
Whig connections, both of them; but Mr. Trebooze, of Trebooze, he,
again, thorough-going Tory--very good patient he was once, and may be
again--ha! ha! Gay young man, sir--careless of his health; so you see
as a medical man, sir--"
"Which is the liberal paper? This one? Very good." And Tom wrote off
to the liberal paper that evening a letter, which bore fruit ere the
week's end, in the shape of five columns, headed thus:--
WRECK OF THE "HESPERUS."
"The following detailed account of this lamentable catastrophe has
been kindly contributed by the graphic pen of the only survivor,
Thomas Thurnall, Esquire, F.
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