THE MAIN KIGIIT. 267 this tendency, still did not for a moment abandon chap. VI. 2d Pei-iod. the obvious duty of endeavouring to overwhelm the little band of English soldiery, and, upon the whole, it resulted that the task of our people was, at some points, to scrape their way past ; at others, to cut their way through. The Duke of Cambridge, not being personally TiioDukeof obstructed by any hostile mass directly barring ana some of ... . . . . , . his troojis his path, was able to ride past the enemy with swaiiing his ever blithe aide-de-camp, Major Macdonald ;* interposed force. and although, as may well be supposed, he drew abundance of fire, he finally made good his way with only the loss of a charger shot under him and the graze of a ball in his arm. As with the chief, so also it fared with a part of the soldiery under him ; for they scraped past the Eussians without being ilatly obstructed. But another part of the remnant which had come up from the gorge of the Battery took a route which lay more towards the west, and became thus a separate band, consisting in great measure of Coldstream men, with other troops intermixed. The band They had not yet moved far up the hill, when direcuy'^ they found themselves directly confronted and and attacked fired upon by a part of the interposed battalion, Russians, which — because of the smoke and the mist — our people had not before seen.
- The indefatigable ' cheeriness ' of Macdonald on the Inker-
uiau da}' was mucli remarked, and in particular, I believe, by Lord Raglan, who liked to see his officers in that mood during an action. In bis despatch of the 11th November, he adduced his personal testimony— a, rather unusual step — in support of th(.' praisu accorded to Macdonald.
