“’Tention to the whole. To the left, no--that is the left--I mean the right--left wheel--march.” He was strictly obeyed, some wheeling to the right, others left, and some both ways. “Halt--let’s try again! I could not just tell my right hand from my left--long as I have served, I find something new to learn every day--now gentlemen, do that motion once more.” By the help of a non-commissioned officer in front of each platoon they succeeded in wheeling this time with some regularity. “’Tention the whole--_by divisions--to the right, wheel--march!_” They did wheel and they did march, and it seemed as if Bedlam had broken loose; every man took the command: “Not so fast on the right!” “Haul down those umbrellas!” “Faster on the left--keep back in the middle!” “Don’t crowd so!” “I’ve lost my shoe!” And by this time confusion was so many times confounded that the narrative had to cease perforce. There is a Sherlock Holmes-like story told of a deserter from the British army who tried to enlist in Buffalo. His good manner and address were noticeable, and he was supposed to be no common recruit. A surgeon who suspected him suddenly called out “Attention!” and as the man’s hands dropped by his side he stood confessed a soldier. At Fort Brady, with its whitewashed palisades and little mushroom towers, was a castle, unrivalled in modern architecture. On the greensward in front were drilled an awkward squad of matchless awkwardness, in that way the superiors of any Canadians whom they might propose to attack. On occasion one would give his front file a punch in the small of the back to speed his movements, another would aim a kick for the same purpose; each had a humour to knock his neighbour indifferently well. The sentinels, in flannel jackets, were lounging up and down, looking like ploughboys ready to shoot sparrows, quite in keeping with their surroundings. But on the Canadian side there were not even these vivid demonstrations of power. Enthusiasm, however, made up for many shortcomings. In all the newspapers of the two provinces such productions as that shown in reduced fac-simile on the opposite page might be seen; age has robbed the original, now lying before us, of a few words, but the lettering and alignment are unaltered. The chronicler has it that Brockville’s corps began with twenty-three inoffensive and respectable men of small merchandise, who essayed to hearten themselves and terrify the French by adopting the name Invincibles. This amused Kingston, and a corps was accordingly turned out from there, called the Unconquerables, in order not to be behind “the paltry little village down the river,” and in a bogus notice from one “Captain Focus, commanding,” there was an N.B.: “No Unconquerable permitted to attend muster without his shoes well blacked and his breeches well mended.” [Illustration]