BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 249 The Grenadiers, when we left them just now, chap. were busy with their rifles along their whole line, ^' and were making good use of that delicate bend continuanco in the formation of their leftmost company which betweeift'he enabled them to pour their fire into the heart of Guards and the left the Vladimir column then hanging on their flank, viadimir r^>^ , . f> i • i i • • column. ihe reckoning ot hira who puts his trust m column is mainly based on the notion that its mere grandeur of aspect will give it a clear as- cendant as soon as it is seen at all near ; and when the English line had once delivered its fire, the front-rank men of the column w^ere not with- out grounds for making sure that their next glimpse of the red-coats would be a glimpse of men in retreat ; for to have come forward to with- in a distance convenient for musket-shots and to have once delivered their fire, this was surely the utmost in the way of close fighting that files of only two men each would attempt against masses. But when, though only a little, the smoke began to lift, the gleams that pierced it were the light that is shed from bayonet-points and busy ram- rods — gleams twinkling along the line of the two ranks of soldiery who still, as it seemed, must be lingering in their strange array ; and wherever the smoke lifted clear, there — steadfast as oaks disclosed by rising mist — the long avenue of the Bearskins loomed out, and so righteously in place as to begin to enforce a surmise that, after all, the files of the two men each might be minded to stand where they were, ceremoniously shooting into the column and filling it minute by minute
