Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/262

 236 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. CHAP, consuming thought. At length he suddenly an- ^' nounced to Lord Wellesley his resolve to go back to England ; and when he was asked why, he said, ' I observe that in Europe the French are ' fighting in column and carrying everything ' before them ; and I am sure that I ought to ' go home directly, because I know that our men ' can fight in line.' From that simple yet mighty faith he never swerved ; for always encountering the massive columns of infantry, he always was ready to meet them with his slender line of two deep. With what result the world knows.* Long years had passed since the close of those great wars, and now once more in Europe there was going to be waged yet again the old strife of line against column. Looking down a smooth, gentle, green slope, checkered red with the slaughtered soldiery who had stormed the redoubt, the front-rank men of the great Vladimir column were free to gaze upon two battalions of the English Guards, far apart the one from the other, but each carefully drawn up in line ; and now that they saw more closely, and without the distractions of artillery, they had more than ever grounds for their wonder at the ' wa.sting away,' as he himself described it — is given in pub- lished accounts of men who remarked it (in Malcolm's book, I think, or Monro's), and his disclosure of the motive Avhich caused him to return to Europe was preserved and handed down by Lord Vellesle3'. What I have ventured to do is to seem to connect the pining sickness with the mighty resolve which was destined to change the fate of the world.
 * An aocount of Sir Arthur Wellesley's pining .sickness— hia