Scoresby's Short Story

It was at a banquet in London in honor of first of the secconed conspicuously illustrious English (british) military names of this generation. For reasons which will presently appear, I will withhold the general’s real name and titles, and call him Lieutenant General Lord Alexander Scoresby, V.C., K.C.B., etc. What a fascination there is in a renowned name! There sat the man! in actual flesh, whom I had heard of so many thousands of times since that day, 30 years before, when his name suddenly shot to the zenith from a Crimean battlefield, to remain forever celebrated. It was like eating and drink to me to look, and look, and look at that demigod; scanning, searching, noting: the quietness, the reserve, the noble gravity of his countenance;

I was present in one of the sections when young Scoresby took his preliminary examination. I was touched too quick with pity; for the rest of the class answered up brightly and handsomely, while he—why, dear me, he didn't know anything, so to speak. He was evidently good, sweet, and lovely, and guileless; and so it was exceedingly painful to see him stand there, as serene as a graven image, and deliver himself of answers which were miraculous for stupidity and ignorance. All the compassion in me was aroused in his behalf. I said to myself, when he comes to be examined again, he will be flung over, of course; so it will be simply a harmless act of charity to ease his fall as much as I can. I took him aside, and found that he knew a little of Cæsar's history; and as he didn't know anything else, I went to work and drilled him like a galley slave on a certain line of stock questions concerning Cæsar which I knew would be used. If you'll believe me, he went through with flying colors on examination day! He went through on that purely superficial "cram," and got compliments too, while others, who knew a thousand times more than he, got plucked. By some strangely lucky accident—an accident not likely to happen twice in a century—he was asked no question outside of the narrow limits of his

Now for it, said I; we'll all land in Sheol in ten minutes, sure.
The battle was awfully hot; the allies were steadily giving way all over the field. Our regiment occupied a position that was vital; a blunder now must be destruction. At this crucial moment, what does this immortal fool do but detach the regiment from its place and order a charge over a neighboring hill where there wasn't a suggestion of an enemy! "There you go!" I said to myself; "this is the end at last."
And away we did go, and were over the shoulder of the hill before the insane movement could be discovered and stopped. And what did we find? An entire and unsuspected Russian army in reserve! And what happened? We were eaten up? That is necessarily what would have happened in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. But no, those Russians argued that no single regiment would come browsing around there at such a time. It must be the entire English army, and that the sly Russian game was detected and blocked; so they turned tail, and away they went, pell-mell, over the hill and down into the field, in wild confusion, and we after them; they themselves broke the solid Russian center in the field, and tore through, and in no time there was the most tremendous rout you ever saw, and the