Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/267

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 245 bent on aligning with his fellows, will not be chap. content to range himself on the flaiik of the line, but dart at some point in the squadron which he seemingly judges to be his own rightful place, and strive to force himself in. Eiding, as it is usual for the commander of a regiment to do, some way in advance of his regiment, Lord George Paget was especially tormented and pressed by the riderless horses which chose to turn round and align with him. At one time there were three or four of these horses advancing close abreast of him on one side, and as many as five on the other. Impelled by terror, by gregarious instinct, and by their habit of ranging in line, they so ' closed ' in upon Lord George as to besmear his overalls with blood from the gory flanks of the nearest intruders, and oblige him to use his sword. Familiar pulpit reflections concerning man's frail tenure of life come to have all the air of fresh truths when they are pressed upon the attention of mortals by the ' ping ' of the bullet, by the sighing, the humming, and at last the ' whang ' of the round-shot, by the harsh ' whirr ' of the jagged iron fragments thrown abroad from a bursting shell, by the sound — most abhorred of all those heard in battle — the sound that issues from the moist plunge of the round-shot when it buries itself with a ' slosh ' in the trunk of a man or a horse. Under tension of this kind prolonged for some minutes, the human mind, without being flurried, may be wrought into so high a state of