Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/61

LORD RAGLAN'S KNVOY. 29 French; for it is rarely the lot of a general not CHAP. also a sovereign to have at his side so gifted, so __ persuasive an envoy as the one he charged with that mission to General Canrobert's quarters. But who was the envoy thus trusted for a work The envoy sent by trulv vital — the envoy thus happily able to return Lord Bag- J J rl ' lan tn the from his mission with tidings of absolute concord French ° head- instead of the threatened dissension ? quarters. He was one whom our people at home were visiting with their bitterest wrath — wrath not caused, I gladly believe, by any deep malice, but rather by sheer mistake. It sometimes happens in battle that — confused by mist, smoke, and tumult — a regiment stands busily firing upon a friendly body of troops, because taking it for an enemy's column ; and the regiment, if English, and therefore tenacious of purpose, is not very easily checked ; for the men — having warmed to their baneful work — look up angrily and deafly at the excited young aide-de-camp who has gal- loped up shouting, protesting with a vehemence they quite disapprove, and turn savagely on the bugler who, under some orders from an unknown officer on horseback, has begun to sound the ' Cease firing ' ! It was by a mistake no less innocent, yet also, one must own, no less obstinate, that whilst this devoted Staff officer — the right-hand man of Lord Raglan — was toiling day and night at head- quarters in the business of the winter campaign, our misjudging people in England were making him a mark for attacks, conducted with a power,