Proper pride : A novel. Volume 2 (of 3)

A Novel.
Life may change, but it may fly not;
Hope may vanish, but can die not;
Truth be veiled, but still it burneth,
Love repulsed—but it returneth.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
PROPER PRIDE.
Our hero went to the Neilgherry Hills for the remainder of his two months’ leave. It is quite beyond my pen to describe that lovely region, but in common with almost all who have ever been there I have an admiration amounting to a passion for the Blue Hills. I declare them to be the most salubrious, delightful, beautiful range in the whole world. If I were to attempt a detailed description of these most favoured hills, I should fall so far short of their perfections that I would only incur the wrath and contempt of their many devoted admirers, so I shall content myself by merely giving a description of Sir Reginald’s journey up the Ghaut.
He arrived at the foot of the hills early one morning, having spent a night of heat, mosquitoes, and consequent madness at Mettapollium. He rode up by the old road, which is nine miles to Coonor, in preference to driving up the new ghaut, a detour of sixteen miles. His thoughts were exceedingly pleasant, and he whistled uninterruptedly for the first two miles; but after a while the beautiful scenery he was passing through engaged his attention entirely, and more than once he stopped his horse and looked about in amazed admiration. “Oh, if Alice could only see it! If she were here, what ecstasies she would be in!” was his frequent thought. As he journeyed steadily up, the close tropical vegetation was gradually left behind, the trees assumed a more European aspect, the air lost its thick steamy feel, and became every instant more rarefied and pure. The path appeared to wind in and out through mountain-sides clothed with trees and foliage of every description; a foaming river was tearing headlong down a wide rocky channel and taking frantic leaps over all impediments. The scenery was splendid. In spite of hunger and fatigue, Sir Reginald felt as if he could gaze and gaze for hours, and yet that his eyes would scarcely be satisfied. Wild roses and wild geraniums abounded on all sides; enormous bunches of heliotrope were growing between the stones; lovely flowering creepers connected the trees, and as to the ferns——!