The speculation turned out a good one, but the chances were against it. No one else, probably, under the circumstances, would have run the risk, and the cattle would have been left behind.
I mention this anecdote as showing that in small things as well as great my brother refused to acknowledge difficulties, and deserved the character given him of being the most "wide-awake" man in the army. Shortly afterwards he invested part of the proceeds in a house at Umbâla, which happened to be then put up for a forced sale at a great depreciation. This consequently went among his friends by the name of the "cow-house."
A short time before the return of the column to Delhi, he applied for a few weeks' leave, in order to join his wife, who had come down from Simla to Umbâla.
On November 3d he wrote to his sister from Umbâla:--
After nearly six months of separation, I was happy enough to get back here yesterday night, and find my wife well, and all but recovered from the effects of her frightful accident, the most wonderful escape, perhaps, from imminent peril ever recorded. I take the first holiday I have had since the 15th May, to write a few lines to you, my dearest sister, to say what deep and real pleasure and comfort your letters bring to me, amidst danger and toil and fatigue; and how cheering it is to feel that, come what may, I am sure of your loving sympathy and constant affection. I received yesterday your letter of the 4th May, and could not but be most forcibly struck with the contrast between my circumstances individually, and those of the country, then and now. No one will rejoice more than yourself at the sudden change, and at the tolerable success which has been permitted to my labors....
_Nov. 15th._--Here my pen was arrested by the news that the mail was gone. In these days all regularity is set at defiance, and again we have been startled by a notice to send our letters within half an hour, and that, too, in the midst of preparation for a hurried return to Delhi and Meerut, to rejoin my regiment. We march at once to join Sir Colin Campbell and the army assembling at Cawnpore for the reconquest of Lucknow.
I am getting on famously with my regiment; men of good family and fighting repute are really flocking to my standard,[61] and before the end of the year I hope to have 1,000 horsemen under my command.