“And there's nothing like it in all the world for forming a man!” cried Fossbrooke, in a voice of triumph. “Your fair-weather fellows go through life with half their natures unexplored. They know no more of the interior country of their hearts than we do of Central Africa. Beyond the fact that there is something there--something--they know nothing. A man must have conflict, struggle, peril, to feel what stuff there 's in him. He must be baffled, thwarted, ay, and even defeated. He must see himself amongst other men as an unlucky dog that fellows will not willingly associate with. He must, on poor rations and tattered clothing, keep up a high heart,--not always an easy thing to do; and, hardest of all, he must train himself never in all his poverty to condescend to a meanness that when his better day comes he would have to blush for.” “If you weight poverty with all those fine responsibilities, I suspect you'll break its back at once,” said Tom, laughing. “Far from it. It is out of these self-same responsibilities that poverty has a backbone at all;” and the old man stood bolt upright, and threw back his head as though he were emblematizing what he had spoken of. “Now, Tom, for business. Are you strong enough to come back here and look after the shaft?” “Yes, I think so. I hope so.” “I shall probably be some weeks away. I 'll have to go over to Holt; and I mean to run adown amongst the Cornwall fellows and show them some of our ore. I 'll make their mouths water when they see it.” Tom bit off the end of his cigar, but did not speak. “I mean to make Beattie a present of ten shares in that new shaft, too. I declare it's like a renewal of youth to me to feel I can do this sort of thing again. I 'll have to write to your father to come back also. Why should he live in exile while we could all be together again in affluence and comfort?” Tom's eyes ranged round the bare walls and the shattered windows, and he raised his eyebrows in astonishment at the other's illusions. “We had a stiff 'heat' before we weathered the point, that's certain, Tom,” said the old man. “There were days when the sky looked dark enough, and it needed all our pluck and all our resolution to push on; but I never lost heart,--I never wavered about our certainty of success,--did I?” “No; that you did not. And if you had, I certainly should not have wondered at it.” “I 'll ask you to bear this testimony to me one of these days, and to tell how I bore up at times that you yourself were not over hopeful.” “Oh, that you may. I'll be honest enough to own that the sanguine humor was a rare one with me.”