I am sorry indeed to hear poor Nancy[274] has been unwell. God bless her, she was a wild, light-hearted thing once, like my wife.
Umbala, 14th Jan. 1845.
My book is in the hills. Harry Lorrequer would make a good story of it. You may ask him if you like, and let me know what he says of it. I ought to expect half the proceeds. It is a book that would take wonderfully. Suppress actual names. All my old comrades would speedily know the hero and heroine of the romance. I hope to return to my dear old wife by the middle of March.
Harry.
Simla, 15th March, 1845.
Your description of railroads astonishes the eyes of a Whittlesea man. It is a very curious circumstance that one of the Romans’ great roads ran down to Eastrey near Charles’ farm, that is, between our two old fields, from which I have fetched up old Jack from grass many a time, and Charles’ large farm (the Decoy is the name, I think). These railroads will have an effect on the world, whether for good or evil, and will change its population to one community, either saints or devils or a bastard mixture of both.
Simla, 1st May, 1845 (the Merry Month).
I have not a word of news to give you. Affairs in the Punjaub are like the waves of the sea, agitated more or less, but not by the wind, but the blast of the mutinous trumpets of the rabble army. I hope we may have a slap at it, because I rely upon Sir Henry Hardinge desiring to give me a command, which I firmly believe Sir Hugh Gough would not oppose, for I never got on smoother with any of my generals, and he is as warm-hearted a fellow as ever breathed, and does right and acquits himself manfully to the extent of the powers the Lord has bestowed upon him.
I am glad to observe the English feeling which strikes at so condemnable a system as that of opening letters. I would rather fight to put down a Revolution arising from private correspondents than cock a pop-gun to maintain so nefarious a breach of all public and private confidence. We are in danger enough from the Mesmerites telling us in a deep sleep what is going on in the next room (a three-feet wall intervening), without having recourse to the other side of a thin sheet of paper.
Juana’s health is capital, thank God, but I am never half so well in the hills as on the plains. Nothing can be more beautiful than our situation, but I love the winter gallops on the plains as flat as the Bedford level.