CA.MBRIDGE TO GUERNSEY AND TORQUAY. 17 



in India with admiration, and I would have gladly 

 welcomed him home had he been spared." 



It was about this time that William Hodson 

 became acquainted with two boys, the sons of his 

 father's old pupil James Thomason, who was al- 

 ready coming to the front in the Civil Service of 

 the East India Company. The boys were spending 

 their holidays under the archdeacon's hospitable 

 roof at Colwich, 



" And happy holidays they were," writes General 

 Charles Thomason, the younger of the two sons. 

 " It was there in the early 'Forties that I made 

 the acquaintance of William Hodson, who speedily 

 raised himself to the rank of hero in my boyish 

 imagination. He was always so cheery that no 

 boy could have resisted him. 



" He enjoyed above all things coaching me up 

 in gleanings from ' Pickwick,' which at his call I 

 occasionally recited to an admiring audience. 

 'Away with melancholy, as the little boy said 

 when his schoolmistress died,' was a favourite one, 

 and knowing him as well in after-years as I did, 

 I often thought of ' away with melancholy ' as his 

 natural motto. It was in the Mutiny days that 

 we were destined to meet again." ^ 



It appears that during his residence at Cambridge 

 Hodson had at one time thought of studying for 

 the Bar. But the state of his health conspired 

 with his earlier predilections to turn his thoughts 

 into less pacific channels. A cadetship in the East 

 India Company's service offered many attractions 

 to young men of soldierly instincts and moderate 

 wealth. It meant, for one thing, a sure provision 



^ MS. Reminiscences by General C. Thomason. 



B 



