Alma came, his remarks on the
French failure to get into the fight were severe. "What was they
_ever_, at best, without Boney?" he would inquire. But a letter from
his son after Inkermann changed all that.

"Half of us was killed, and the rest of us clean tired with fighting,"
wrote Corporal Locke. "What with a bullet through the flesh of my
right leg, and the fatigue of using the bayonet so long, I was like to
drop. The Russians was coming on again as if there was no end to them,
when strange drums came sounding in the mist behind us. With that we
closed up and faced half-round, thinking they had outflanked us and
the day was gone, so there was nothing more to do but make out to die
hard, like the sons of Waterloo men. You would have been pleased to
see the looks of what was left of the old regiment, father. Then all
of a sudden a French column came up the rise out of the mist,
screaming, '_Vive l'Empereur!_' their drums beating the charge. We
gave them room, for we were too dead tired to go first. On they went
like mad at the Russians, so that was the end of a hard morning's
work. I was down,--fainted with loss of blood,--but I will soon be fit
for duty again. When I came to myself there was a Frenchman pouring
brandy down my throat, and talking in his gibberish as kind as any
Christian. Never a word will I say agin them red-legged French again."

"Show me the man that would!" growled old John. "It was never in them
French to act cowardly. Didn't they beat all the world, and even stand
up many's the day agen ourselves and the Duke? They didn't beat,--it
wouldn't be in reason,--but they tried brave enough, and what more'd
you ask of mortal men?"

With the ending of the Crimean War our village was illuminated. Rows
of tallow candles in every window, fireworks in a vacant field, and a
torchlight procession! Old John marched at its head in full
regimentals, straight as a ramrod, the hero of the night. His son had
been promoted for bravery on the field. After John came a dozen gray
militiamen of Queenston Heights, Lundy's Lane, and Chippewa; next some
forty volunteers of '37. And we boys of the U. E. Loyalist settlement
cheered and cheered, thrilled with an intense vague knowledge that the
old army of Wellington kept ghostly step with John, while aerial
trumpets and drums pealed and beat with rejoicing at the fresh glory
of the race and the union of English-speaking men unconsciously
celebrated and symbolized by the lit