Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/330

 300 THE DEATH OF LORD RAGLAN. c ii a p. had been never at all interrupted by the Languoi A 1 11. p or peace. What soldiers now and then see of the bearing of Commanders observed to be conversing on horseback is not always without its significance ; and when any such opportunities invited our Allies to form judgments of the quality of the English Commander, the keen-witted Frenchman could see that he held a great personal ascend- ancy, since other chiefs hung on his words, and seemed to be willingly governed, seeming also to be calmed and cheered by answers that fell from his lips. But again, there is a spell in personal daring — where it chances to govern events — which carries the hearts of men. When Lord Eaglan — not pre- ceded, not followed by troops, but having seaman's blood in his veins * — cantered down to the Alma, and forded it, and rode on through the enemy's skirmishers, losing only two of his Staff, and at last crowned that knoll in the line of the Kussian position where fortune gave him her welcome, he was under the eyes of French soldiers.! It could not but be that the story of what these men saw would swiftly spread through their camp. To Pelissier's troops, the late English Com- mander, of course, had been by nation a foreigner, + Not the same bodies of French soldiers ; for those who saw him ride down to the river did not see him in the cover beyond, passing through the enemy's skirmishers ; and again, those who saw him in the cover or fording the stream, could not afterwards see him on the top of the knoll.
 * His mother was the daughter of Admiral Boscawcn.