reins of his bridle or the buckles of his | diers, and placed on horses only to pouldrons [shoulder-pieces], whereby give them greater mobility. Here is he shall be disabled from making any an account of one such action in which resistance." Hacking was necessary, Cromwell nearly lost his life. "Both because bridle-reius were strength- the enemy and we had drawn up our ened by a wire chain. Of lances we dragooners, who gave the first charge hear little, the fact being that they were out of fashion at that time, and only employed when no better weapon was to be found. Fire-arms were the rage of the day, and it is expressly mentioned in the instructions for raising the Scotch army that no man should carry a lance who could furnish himself with any other weapon.1 Of inferior arms the pole-axe was a favorite among officers. This preference for fire-arms accounts for a great deal that sounds strange in the history of the war, and helps us to get rid of a good many false notions. In the first place, the formation of the troop into five ranks was based on the principle that five ranks of men with two pistols apiece were equal to ten ranks of men with one musket apiece, the latter being the normal formation of infantry. Hence the ordinary cavalry attack was delivered by ranks; each rank fired its two pistols 2 and filed or countermarched to the rear, leaving the next rank to do likewise. Anything more remote from "shock-action" can hardly be conceived; and indeed we know from a variety of evidence that shock-action was not the rule. "A cuirassier usually giveth his charge upon the trot," says Ward. And again: "When the enemy shall charge you with one of his troops, do not you rush forward to meet him, but if your ground be of advantage, keep it." It is often said that Cromwell altered the system of cavalry attack from an exchange of volleys to shock-action, but we question if this can be maintained by facts. Cavalry actions, we find, were generally opened by a preliminary fire of dragoous, who were simply mounted infantry, armed with the musket, drilled like foot-sol Rushworth. The American prejudice in favor of the revolver as the cavalry weapon is therefore only a return to an old fashion. His [fired the first shot]; and then the "After we had stood ณ Nor does it seem to us that we are thus the lance was treated as an obsoquite correct in looking upon Rupert as lete relic of bygone days, much like a a kind of Murat, as the usual fashion muzzle-loading rifle at the present is. Take, for instance, his attack at time. Nevertheless, there were a few Naseby. He advanced up a slight in- troops of lancers engaged in the Civil cline, and he "came fast," as we are War; and it is interesting to note the expressly told, probably at a trot. Ire- consummate success of their old shockton, who was opposed to him, also tactics. Thus at Marston Moor, Fairadvanced down the hill. On seeing fax, with a small body of Lancers, him, Rupert halted, thus giving Ireton crashed through the opposing cavalry the chance of plunging down upon him on his own wing, passed right round with irresistible force. But Ireton also the rear of the royal army, and fell halted in his turn, partly on account upon the rear of the horse on the other of "the disadvantage of the ground, wing. So, too, at Dunbar, the only partly to allow some of his troops to troops that made any impression on recover their stations." Had Rupert Cromwell's cavalry were one or two continued his advance he would have that carried lances in the front rank. found Ireton in disorder; but as it was Still, speaking generally, shock-action he gave him time to get his troops was the exception rather than the together. Then he charged Ireton and rule; and quite apart from all military routed him; but as usual he made no rules or prejudices it is probable that attempt to rally his men. and ultimately the size, condition, and speed of the appeared alone before the Parliamen- horses, which had to carry a great tary baggage, having doubtless pene-weight and yet were mostly under trated thus far through the superiority fifteen hands high, wrought strongly of his own equipment and of the horse against it. which he rode. Cromwell, though by As a curious link between the Middle repute less dashing, would never let Ages and the seventeenth century, it his troops out of hand; and having may be mentioned that the old chivthe last reserves to throw in, carried alric fashion of a preliminary combat all before him on his own wing. Per- of champions found not infrequent exhaps, however, the most remarkable ample in the Civil War. Thus Rupert feature in the handling of the cavalry and Massey once galloped out to meet at Naseby was the total ignorance of each other in front of their armies, and the Parliamentary leaders as to the shot each the other's horse dead. The ground over which their force was to combat being thus drawn, the two advance. Ireton's left was overborne principals exchanged polite messages without difficulty, "having much disad- through a trumpeter. On the other vantage by reason of pits of water and hand Colonel Morgan's instructions for other pieces of ditches which hindered a cavalry charge in 1654 bring us them in their order to charge." Crom- nearer to modern days. These were well on the other wing fell into similar"that not a man should fire till he difficulties. Many of his divisions came within a horse's length of the being "straitened by furzes, advanced enemy, and then to throw their pistols with great difficulty, as also by reason in their faces and so fall on with the of the unevenness of the ground and a sword.” cony-warren over which they were to march." Evidently "ground-scouts "attacking infantry. were a thing unknown. Altogether it seems to us certain that cavalry charges, in the sense of swift, sudden onslaught, were the exception in the Civil War. Fashion, as has been said, was against it, owing to the prejudice in favor of fire-arms; and It remains to consider the method of The tactics prescribed are those practised by the Macedonian cavalry of Alexander the Great, the formation, for instance, of the troops into wedges and other strange shapes; but we doubt if anything so complex was really attempted in the Civil War. The "Soldier's Pocket-book" of Captain John Vernon | the Greys at Waterloo, but in the old recommends a different plan, namely, pictures of Wouvermans, where the to divide the attacking troop into three bodies. Of these three, one was to gallop up to the bristling square of pikes and halt; the officer was then to give some word of command (no matter what), the effect of which was (or was expected to be) that the pikes would close up towards the threatened quarter, leaving a weak spot for one or other of the divisions to assail. If the infantry were dispersed in skirmishing order, then and then alone it was orthodox to form the whole troop in a single rank ("rank entire " is the old term, which still survives in full use), and swoop down upon them in line. cavaliers caracole about firing pistols in each other's faces. We must get rid of all such fancy sketches as Whyte Melville has drawn in "Holmby House," where Cromwell is presented as halting the Ironsides at the end of an advance in line. We very greatly doubt if either regiment of Ironsides 1 ever went through a regimental field-day in its whole life; certainly there is not a word of instruction to the colonel for the conduct of such a field-day. But that there was troop-drill in abundance under the eye of a vigilant and critical colonel, there can be no doubt. "I have a lovely company," wrote Cromwell of the mother troop of the IronFinally we come to reconnaissance sides, with all a soldier's pride. We duties, which seem to have been recog- must picture to ourselves dense columns nized as among the trooper's functions, of horsemen moving slowly and steadily but are very vaguely described. The in extended order, now closing up and duty of the troops," we read, "is al- now again opening out. And at the ways to scour and discover the high-end of each manœuvre no short, sharp, ways and avenues by which the enemy peremptory barking of "Eyes centre, might come; and to be ever hovering dress,' ," but "Silence, and even your about the enemy's army.' "" The same ranks,' ""Silence, and straighten your writer, Captain John Crusoe, also files," for military brevity was not yet dwells on the importance of never a proverb and the word "Attention " losing touch with an opposing army was not invented. So, too, there was when once it is found, thus anticipating no so unmannerly caution as Wheel present ideas by two centuries. But to the right, follow and cover," but little is really said on the subject; and "Gentlemen, in your wheelings, be it is only from our “Soldier's Pocket- careful to follow this rule, always obbook," a minor authority, that we dis- serve your right-hand man and your cover that vedettes were posted then, leader." For your cavalry-man was as now, in pairs. It is perhaps charac- then, as now, a superior being, and not teristic of the genius of the nation that to be classed with a mere foot-soldier. Cromwell in one letter declares his If he were degraded it was to nothing preference for a good "foot-intelli- worse than a mounted infantry-man or gencer" over any number of cavalry dragoon; though such fall was low scouts ; and that Fairfax was given enough in all conscience, since it car£1,000 wherewith to buy his intelli- ried with it a reduction of pay from gence. Foreign critics still reproach us two shillings to eighteenpence a day, for our general adherence to the same service under an ensign instead of a principle, in the Peninsular War and at cornet, and obedience to the homely other times. drum in place of the nobler and more dignified trumpet. We are now in a position to judge more correctly of the British cavalry soldier, as Cromwell originally made him. We should seek our ideas of the man not in modern pictures which make a cavalry action of the Civil War as headlong a matter as the charge of 66 Colonel Cromwell, we may be sure, 1 Ironside, as Mr. Gardner has taught us, was Rupert's nickname for Cromwell; and the word would be more properly written Ironside's, i.e., Cromwell's, regiments being called after their colonels. looked very sharply to the behavior of of all his troops, and spared no man, knowing his duties as a commanding officer better than any drill-book could teach him. One order in particular we may be confident that he did not neglect: "On the Sabbath the colonel is to have a sermon in his tent morning and afternoon; and every officer of his regiment is to compel all his soldiers that are free from guard to repair thither; and no sutler shall draw any beer in time of Divine Service and sermon." Shortly after, it fought at Naseby and in the campaign of 1645-46 in the west, moving in swift progress from victory to victory. And by this time the men of the cavalry regiments, well So the famous regiments were grad-equipped and disciplined, began to feel ually hammered, troop by troop, into pride in themselves as soldiers, and proper shape. It is likely enough that huge contempt for the unfortunate Cromwell received help from Dutch Royalist troopers, whose condition corporals trained in the school of Mau- grew worse as fast as their own grew rice of Nassau, for he had a relative, better. What must have been the Colonel John Cromwell, in the Dutch spirit in the ranks when the Parliamenservice; but the master-spirit that con- tary trooper could describe a Royalist trolled them was his own. At Marston detachment in such terms as these: Moor they went into action and gave" First came half-a-dozen of carbines Rupert his first severe check; but we in their leathern coats, and starved, do not know what their losses were. We know only of the manner of one young subaltern's death, told in Cromwell's own plain words. "Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son [young Walton] by a cannon shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have just like so many fiddlers with their it cut off, whereof he died. At his fiddles in cases by their horses' sides. fall, his horse being killed by the bul-. . . In the works at Bristol was a comlet, and as I am informed, three horses pany of footmen with knapsacks and more, I am told he bid them opeu to the right and left, that he might see the rogues run.” A good stamp of subaltern, this poor boy, probably one of the lighter and more dashing elements in that corps of stern disciplined troopers, whose great strength lay in their ability not only to charge, but to rally. Then in less than a year came the organization of the New Model Army, wherein the two regiments of Ironsides were blent into one, and handed over to the Lord General Fairfax; "Your regiment, which was mine own," as Cromwell once writes to him of it. As such it appears at the head of the list of regiments of horse, six troops, six hundred strong in all. We may write it down in the modern fashion. weather-beaten jades, just like so many brewers in their jerkins made of old boots, riding to fetch in old casks: and after them as many light horsemen with great saddles and old broken pistols, and scarce a sword among them, half-pikes like so many tinkers with budgets at their backs; and some musketeers with bandoliers about their necks like a company of sow-gelders." The most clownish of yeomanry privates could hardly extort more contemptuous criticism from the smartest of hussar-sergeants at the present day. It gives us a lively picture of the New Model trooper in his new red coat faced with his colonel's colors, his great boots and huge clinking spurs; a soldier before all things in spite of the text on his lips. It seems a far cry from this light cavalry man of the seventeenth century to the hussar of the present day, yet they may not be so distant after all. Though he had no opportunity of wearing an infinitesimal forage-cap and of plaiting his lines (in defiance of all regulation), yet it is diffi- | he never saw him in his accustomed cult to believe that Cromwell's troopers place on a Sunday, but the old man did not sometimes sit in an extra would only reply, "I canna do it, sir; comely posture when the right woman I canna do it! 'Er'd used to go to was looking on. And though the hus- church with me, and I canna go alone," sar has never yet been called upon to and lapse into silence again. There face the highest and most reckless was no one at home now to care what spirits of his own countrymen, yet he did, or whether he was well or ill, under their leadership he has, as at so he ceased to strive against stiffness Villiers-en-Couche and Balaklava, and rheumatism, and crept along with cheerfully charged an army. We can the help of a stick, with bowed shoulhardly expect more of any man. ders, as though he carried a heavy burden. Old 'Lijah was in a parlous state, both of body and mind, when one day the very best thing that could happen befell him, though it From Longman's Magazine. THE TICKING OF THE CLOCK. ELIJAH WALROND, or Old 'Lijah as he was commonly called, was a small tenant farmer, who, by dint of hard work, hard living, and saving, had contrived to lay by enough money to make a frugal provision for his old age. 'Lijah's wife died the year before he quitted the farm that had been their home for forty years, and when he lost her it was like losing a part of himself. He was never the same man again. It took the heart out of his work when there was no wife to talk it over with; he could not relish the food prepared by a strange hand, and he lay awake at nights in his loneliness, staring into the darkness with tearless eyes. There was nothing left to make life sweet to him, and his seventy years weighed on him like a hundred. Then he asked his landlord to let him off the short remainder of his lease, and he left the farm to live in the white cottage with the big garden down by the common. came about through some one else's sorrow. His neighbors said that Old 'Lijah would go silly with loneliness all by Jane Grove reached her father's cothimself, for he saw nobody and spoke tage in the grey of a summer evening, to no one but the woman who came to weary and footsore with her long walk clean and to do his bit of cooking. He from the station, carrying her sleeping seldom left the house, and never went child in her arms. She inquired from beyond the garden, and he had not a man whom she met crossing the comentered the church since the day of mon where Elijah Walrond lived, and his wife's funeral. The rector of the he pointed out to her the little white parish, who had known Elijah Wal-cottage with the big garden. Slowly rond many years, called to ask him why she walked up the long, narrow path, |