FROM SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN. 107 



" He is quite fresh and very Arnold-like, and does 

 me a world of o-ood. One feels at home ao;ain with 

 some one to speak to about former days, and of 

 sense sufficient for conversation. He is a shrewd 

 clever lad, I think." ^ 



By the 21st of January Hodson had reached 

 Patliankot in company with Sir Henry Lawrence. 

 He hoped to see 



" our coursers graze at ease 

 Beyond the blue Borysthenes," 



the name by which he had dubbed the Indus before 

 his return to civilised life. He was now able to ride 

 again, " though not quite with the same firmness in 

 the saddle as of yore. I have no doubt, however, 

 that ere we do see the ' Borysthenes ' I shall be as 

 ' game ' for a gallop of one hundred miles on end as 

 I was last year at this season." 



Some weeks later Hodson became assistant to 

 the Deputy -Commissioner of Amritsar, Charles B. 

 Saunders, — "a very nice sort of fellow, with an 

 exceeding pretty and nice wife." For the Com- 

 missioner himself, Mr (afterwards Sir Robert) 

 Montgomery, he soon conceived a strong liking. 

 " He is a very able man, and at the head of his 

 service in many respects." His letters of this period 

 seem to attest the depressing influence of three 

 months' illness, crowned by an attack of jaundice, 

 from which he was only just recovering. 



1 William Delafield Arnold soon exchanged the life of a soldier for 

 the duties of a public teacher. He became a Director of Public 

 Instruction in the Punjab, and died at Gibraltar on his way home in 

 April 1859. Readers of Matthew Arnold may remember the touch- 

 ing verses in which he mourned his brother's untimely death. See 

 ' Matthew Arnold's Poetical Works,' p. 294. Macmillan, 1890. 



