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But all this Alice declined with as much consistency as she did those other struggles which her old cousin made on her behalf, strong, never-flagging, but ever-failing efforts to induce the girl to go to such places of worship as Lady Macleod herself frequented. A few words must be said as to Alice Vavasor's person; one fact also must be told, and then, I believe, I may start upon my story.
Banana groves, with the trees bending under the weight of the rich, finger-shaped fruit; tall cocoanut-trees, the tops heavy with the nutritious food they bear; stout tamarinds and juicy mangoes; ant-hills, looking like young volcanoes, half as high as native huts; rippling cascades; sharp declivities; glistening pools; white cranes; tall pink flamingoes, standing like sentinels on the muddy banks; an occasional monkey leaping among the trees; golden orioles, gaudy-feathered parrots, and other birds of dazzling hues, are observed with never-flagging interest from the windows of the slowly moving cars, while on this inland route to Kandy.
The little watch beat bravely to the march of time, eager to keep pace with that never-flagging runner; while the quick and feeble breathing of the girl told how she was fast losing in the race with the all-omnipotent hours.
Independently of being the best dancers, after gaining the laurels of victory in the hard-fought field, who can deny that they deserved the prize of beauty? The dancing was kept up with the never-flagging vivacity peculiar to this nation, and, as I conclude, so continued till a very late hour in the morning.
Broken in health, he had turned wearily from the rush and clamor of the city to the clear, balsam-scented air of the woods, where he was fast gaining a health and vigor that he had not believed possible. Out of a lean face, tanned by exposure and wrinkled with kindly humor, a pair of keen gray eyes looked with never-flagging interest upon the busy world about him.
In the morning after the work was done Martha always did some of the light house duties they would watch with never-flagging interest the great herds of cattle as they were driven on their way for shipment from Amarilla, and gossip as girls do.
She seemed unable to take in all the details of his investigations, she disapproved of much of the new doctrine, but she felt that he was right and fighting for a good cause. He knew that he could always count on her never-flagging sympathy; that he had a friend at home who would always stand by him.
If they had been inspired by the grape, nothing could be more animated and even excited than all their countenances suddenly became. The cheer might have been heard in the coffee-room, as they expressed, in the phrases of many languages, the never-failing and never-flagging enthusiasm invoked by the toast of their mistress.
Year in, year out, he had kept himself by his never-flagging exertions, and with the demented idea that he was mounting upward. And now he stood very near the lowest depth of life the very bottom. And he was so tired. Why not let himself sink yet a little further; why not let destiny run its course?
His lively spirit, responding instantaneously to every impulse of Nature and Art; his generous ardor in behalf of whatever is noble and true; his scorn of all meanness, of all false pretences and conventional beliefs, softened as it was by compassion for the victims of those besetting sins of a cultivated age; his never-flagging impetuosity in pushing onward to some unattained point of duty or of knowledge: all this, along with his gentle, almost reverential affectionateness towards his former tutor, rendered my intercourse with him an unspeakable blessing; and time after time has it seemed to me that his visit had been like a shower of rain, bringing down freshness and brightness on a dusty roadside hedge.
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