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 202 THE ^VINTEU TROUBLES. C II A P. IX. The nation steadfast. Impulse ijiven to recruiting Dy the accounts of Inkennan. The coun- sels of the ' Times ' at this period. iiiiig to be wrung with concern f(tr the fate of our suffering troops, now visibly nailed to the Chersonese, and there awaiting midwinter. Still, the growing alarm was a feeling kept within bounds, and wholly of such a complexion as to bring with it fresh strength of purpose. The na- tion proved steadfast ; and amongst all those who sprang forward to execute its will at this time, a place of honour belongs to numbers of youths and young men, for the most part humble in station, yet abler, more willing, than others to bring their country new strength. Accounts that told — even though dimly — of the hard, close fighting at Inkerman proved so enticing to youth, and to war-loving men in these isles, that more eagerly, and in more ample numbers than when Fortune's smile was all sunshine, they came — coming each, life in hand — to swell the list of recruits. This impulsion seems the more interesting, when those who observe it remember that the battle was not one resulting in any great showy triumph, and did not even include that simple clenching of victory which is commonly effected by a pursuit of the beaten troops. It was for northern imaginations, and fancies nurtured in gloom, that the roar, the mist, the smoke, the man-to-man conflict at Inkerman, had a strangely alluring charm. And, until the third week of December, the resolve of the country still found a genuine utterance in that same commanding voice which had moved the war out to Crim-Tartary.