CHAPTER XXVII
The Bonagherry estate, to which Mallender was transported, stood at the head of a slope, overlooking an open park-like distance; immediately round the long low house was a garden full of English flowers, roses, mignonette, violets,—subsequently extending into mere vegetables, such as lettuce, artichokes and tomatoes; further back, were the stables, drying grounds, coolie lines, and the premises were invested on all sides by coffee. It was October; a busy time for planters, and almost wherever the eye rested were dark brown coolies picking the crop. Mallender, luxuriously reclining in a long chair in the verandah, enjoyed the animated scene, and abandoned himself to his environment; a cool sea breeze coming over the Western Ghauts, the perfume of familiar flowers seemed to whisper of renewed vitality and the joy of living.
He had now been a week at Bonagherry, and felt better, and could creep up and down the verandah with the aid of a stick.
The injury to his head occasionally clouded his brain,—and at times he suffered agony; but things were coming back by degrees, and though his mind sometimes dwelt on home, and his prospective voyage, he seemed to have no bodily or mental energy. He was content to sit in the sun, imbibing thin, delicious air, waited on by his kind, sympathetic friends, Jessie and Tom, as well as the invaluable Anthony.
Tom was engaged all day, from the time the "ginty" or horn sounded to summon the coolies, till long after sundown, when he would come into the verandah, and cast his weary frame into a chair, and tell the invalid of his doings.
"It will be a good crop," he answered, in reply to Mallender's questions, "the picking goes well, but coffee isn't what it was—worth a hundred pounds a ton. Now we are lucky if we get fifty—Brazil is ruining us, and we have ninety miles' carting to do, before we get the rail. Of course I have the old man at my back, but I must say I like to make; and anyhow it's a free life."
"All work, and no play?" suggested his guest.
"No, not always; there's still some shooting, and lots of good fellows within a ride. We generally have tennis on Sunday."
"No parson?"