mortally wounded requested to be lifted from his horse, and in the short interval that intervened between his death blow and his last breath, his words of gentleness and kindness to those around him, his recollection of those at home, his simple messages to his comrades in arms, have marked the death-hour of the veteran soldier with those peculiar characteristics which the soldier alone is able to combine, simplicity of character with daring and heroic self-devotion.

So fell Strangways and Cathcart, and so fell a thousand others into their honoured tombs upon that bloody hill. Peace be to their memory! In a future day, when the stir and din of war has ceased, and when, perhaps, Sebastopol will be a ruin for the summer traveller to gaze at, or the bird of prey to soar over; when her churches, her hospitals, and her walls, the Mamelon, the Malakoff, and the Redan, will be but objects to gaze at for the traveller whose aim is but curiosity, when the cannon of besieged and besieger will be buried in the sand, and the sheep will gaze into its harmless mouth, then the Englishman will visit, and visit with a tear the honoured grave of Chester upon the hill of Alma, and of Strangways and Cathcart over the ravine of the Tchernaya. The heaps that are gathered there so rapidly forgotten in the quick succession of battle, of siege, of victory, and of reverse, must in future days be singled out in our recollection as the shrines on which youth and courage, ambition and love of glory consented to lay their chaplets and their honours down, and in the cause of Britain and liberty

give up the long ambitious future for the momentary self-sacrifice of pain and of success.

The scenes that took place immediately after the battle of Inkermann were terrible in the extreme. The moon that night shone down on forms of human beings which will never recur to the mind of those that saw them without feelings that will shadow the merriment of the most brilliant fireside, and check the joy of the most exciting scene of earthly happiness. Here into the bush had crept Russian and Englishman together, mutilated in limb and writhing in the agonies of death, parched with the thirst that no human hand was able to relieve, and in some cases laying their heads upon the bosom of their bitter foe, death making all equal and reconciling in its pale and awful hour those whose hands had been directed against each other's lives but a day before. Many remained in this position during the night, the following day, and the night that followed, before any relief could come to them, and before even they were discerned by any but the bird of prey which soared over them expectant of their death. The scene as described by the correspondents of some of our own papers, especially of the "Times," of that awful night transcends all the vivid descriptions that we have received from the spectators of the scenes of what occurred in this war. The battle lasted for nine hours, and those nine hours were a period of incessant carnage. The whole field was strewn; and where the Guards fought in the Sand Battery there was a terrible preeminence in the slaughter. The sides of the hill were

heaped with the bodies, and the noble guardsmen with their large forms and faces lying amidst the dogged low-browed Russians presented a sad contrast to those recollections that we had of them in the streets of London, or on the day when they first left the metropolis for their glorious course, and devoted end. We have seen pictures of the scene after the battle, where guardsmen lay in front of that battery dead with their arms still raised in the very act of thrusting with the bayonet, and killed in the moment of pointing their own aim. The groans of those who had tried to reach bushes for shelter and lay some days before any one came to help them, were truly appalling. And yet in the midst of these scenes the love of revenge and plunder could not restrain even the wounded Russians from assaulting their dying enemies where they lay. Large trenches were dug on the ground for the dead. The Russians were placed in one by themselves; and the French and English side by side. There was a marked difference in those who died by the bayonet, and those who died by the musket shot. The numbers that fell around Cathcart presented in their faces great anguish of expression, inasmuch as the great mass of them were slaughtered at the point of the bayonet, while around the Sand bag Battery the heaps that lay gazing into the sky above them bore in many cases expressions of calmness where the musket ball or rifle had made its hideous but rapid wound, severing instantaneously the bonds of soul and body.

Leonard fought gallantly throughout the whole of this memorable action. He scarcely left his post for a

moment, which was in the neighbourhood of the Sand bag Battery, and at one time, as I have said, within it. Dennis fought with equal courage within sight of his master. The scene was one which perhaps remained as vividly upon their minds afterwards as any in the war, although, as Leonard often said, the first moment was the worst, as far as apprehension went, for from that onwards nothing but extreme excitement and occasionally actual forgetfulness and unconsciousness of what was going on, were the leading features of his mind and condition.

From the conclusion of the battle of the Alma the Russians retired to a great degree within their batteries; and early in November, the weather that had been hitherto mild, grew gradually foggy, moist, and raw. The horizon of the Black Sea became blocked with mist, and the surface soon changed from the blue of summer to the cool grey of winter.

It was on the 14th that the strong wind set in that drove before it a flood of rain so plentiful that the tents swelling in beneath the blasts, left no slant sufficient to repel the water which was caught in the hollows, and filtered through.

This event began that second period of British sufferings in the Crimea, far worse than the first, that in which they had to contend with the elements, the sky, the earth, and the sea. But of that anon.

From that time onwards till February the sufferings of our troops have transcended perhaps that of any other army in a similar expedition, and have called forth a feeling of indignation from our own country,

and have set on foot those investigations which have tended so little to raise the credit of our nation as one which was suited to meet the emergency and crisis of war in the middle of the 19th century.

Such were the leading events of November. I return from them to the scenes that were going on in England in connection with those who are mixed up with our heroes in the war.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

NEWS.

JESSY was at last dressed for the party, but it was late before the last touch was put to her attire. Maxwell had remained at the Rectory determined to bring Jessy with him to Mrs. Mulso's. The boy felt that peculiar interest about her which is so often felt by the younger brother of one who, as in Leonard's case, had secured the affections of youth, and loveliness and tenderness of mind. Maxwell, though but fifteen, and more wedded to the stable and the race-course than to anything more heroic or refined, had such an admiration for his future sister-in-law that she could almost turn him from any purpose in spite of his obstinate will, and with a look of her eye could melt into softness the rough word or the hasty expression which broke from his lips, or swelled in his heart. Jessy knew her influence and was pleased to exercise it. Maxwell was conscious of the power she held over him, and was