Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/267

 2d Period. THE MAIN FIGHT. 223 were the exceptional incidents of the fight ; for c H a i*. in general, even here, though the fighting was un- usually close, there remained interposed that dim, changeful, elastic belt of space which commonly divides the combatants in modern warfare. Fighting under such conditions as these, our troops of course did not form that rigid, opaque wall of soldiery, with its edging of fire and steel, at which English discipline aims, but a knotted chain of men working all of them hard, with interchanges of strength "oin^ on here and there whenever occasion required ; and, in gen- eral, at some part or other of the line, if not along its whole course, there was the writhing, the swaying to and fro of undetermined strife. From the ease with which the Eussians after every defeat found shelter under the steeps, and the determination of the English to hold fast the crest, yet always abstain from pursuit, it resulted that this singular fight on the Kitspur had been hitherto raging entirely upon one narrow strip of ground, and was, besides, more strictly physical in its nature, or in other words less governed by imagination, than the struggles that are com- monly witnessed in a modern battle-field. There- fore, also, it had lasted all this while without decisive result. Eepulses not clenched by pur- suit had proved hitherto barren of consequences, and Panic was not yet imparting to successive dis- comfitures the proportions of a headlong defeat. f>l' costume ; but, so far as I have liappened to hear, the 'Wil- ' kinson' always proved true.