316 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



home, sadly clianged and contracted since I left it, 

 but home still, and dearer than ever, since the dearest 

 part of myself will accompany me. All old home 

 memories were so vividly revived yesterday by 

 Charles Harland's visit, and an extract he read me 

 from a letter from his brother, describing the enthu- 

 siasm of the old people at Colwich [his father's old 

 parish], when the news arrived that the King of 

 Delhi was our prisoner, and how they came to inquire 

 whether it was really their ' Master AVilliam ' who 

 had done it." 



On the 12th he had begun to hold his pen once 

 more in his right hand, and hopes to be again on 

 horseback in a few days. 



" The scar on my arm," he tells his wife, " is a 

 very ugly one, and will mark me for life ; but then, 

 as I am not a lady to wear short sleeves, it does 

 not signify. . . . 



" It will be some days yet before the whole force 

 is collected at Alambagh. Captain Peel has just 

 gone by with his sailors and their enormous ship 

 guns, 6 8 -pounders ! I have little doubt but that 

 Lucknow will be in our hands before another month 

 is over ; and then I shall do my utmost to get my 

 regiment sent back to Umbala to be formed and 

 drilled, which it wants badly. I only wonder it 

 does as well as it has done. I could hardly take any 

 other appointment, or even go home, until I had 

 completed this task ; and I like my regiment, and, 

 what is even more to the purpose, the regiment likes 

 me, and would follow me any and every where, I 

 do believe." 



The inflammation of which he had lately spoken 

 turned out to be erysipelas. But "as it is," he 



